


Altean Home Economics

by skiron



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Culture (Voltron), Cooking, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 25,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23986117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiron/pseuds/skiron
Summary: Goo is great, but Hunk sure would feel better if they had kitchen access, even if that does mean figuring out some extraterrestrial foreign substances and ending up with a lot more than he bargained for. Set between 2x07 "Space Mall" and 2x08 "The Blade of Marmora," stretching time a little bit.
Relationships: Allura & Coran & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro
Comments: 19
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HIATUS for NaNo -- Sunday updates resume 6th December 2020

The first time he tries the food goo, it's incredible, and Hunk has neither the time nor the brain space to analyze it any further than that. The second time, it's still amazing, and he spends some time marveling at it -- tastes good, filling, and literally no one objects to the texture? He looks around the table surreptitiously at the others. Pidge is talking animatedly to Coran at the far end. As far as Hunk can tell, she's enthusing about the ship's bridge interface in between nearly equally enthusiastic bites. Across the way, Lance appears to be racing Keith to finish his bowl, though Keith -- sitting next to Hunk and humming quietly to himself -- hasn't noticed.

"So, it's entirely nonperishable?" Shiro's voice comes from his other side, and Hunk turns to listen as Allura answers.

"The food goo was designed to sustain the paladins for however long they needed to be traveling, and it regenerates within the castle -- it can't expire, since it's constantly being recreated and reabsorbed by the kitchen if it's not eaten." She smiles. "Plus, it's formulated to cover all the nutritional parameters necessary for Alteans, Olkari, Galra --"

"Why Galra?" Keith has stopped his humming.

"Oh," Allura looks slightly taken aback, but the smile returns quickly. "They wanted to be thorough, of course. And it's not as if we were always at war with the Galra Empire."

"Hm," Keith says, and goes back to his goo.

"Yeah, Keith, maybe the Alteans and the Galra were all chummy back then," Hunk says. "Like, hey purple cat man, love what you've done with your armor spikes."

"Galra don't have armor spikes."

"I know, I know, I'm saying that this Galra, you know -- theoretically --" Hunk gestures across the table.

"Are you calling me Galra?" Lance snaps, putting down his spoon in his empty bowl.

"No no no -- I'm indicating a pretend Galra from ten thousand years ago whose armor spikes --" he drops his hand. "It doesn't matter."

"I notice humans were not on that list," says Shiro, which is not a bad point, though by this time they would have realized if it weren't fit for human consumption.  
"Well, there were no human paladins ten thousand years ago!" Allura laughs, and Hunk has to admit it would be a bit absurd for space travel to have even been on the menu for Earth back then. "But rest assured it is free of all toxins and potential toxins --the recipe can't even include karlak, since some life forms never evolved a proper resistance." She looks down at her bowl and sighs. "Shame. I love karlak." Hunk makes a mental note to stay away from anything labeled 'karlak' in the future.

"Can't go feeding the humans karlak, Allura," Coran says emphatically. "Number five was just saying how some of the fungi on their own planet are toxic to them."

“I just think we'd have to run some tests," Pidge says, shrugging.

"Just as long as the 'tests,' aren't the same as the ones we ran for the food goo," says Hunk pointedly. "Pretty sure those 'tests' just consisted of, 'let's eat it and see what happens.'" 

***

The third time they have the goo, it's routine. By what Hunk feels like is probably the hundredth time, it's starting to get boring.

"I miss food," he says with a sigh, looking down at his empty bowl. It was good. Delicious, even. The texture decidedly appealing. And yet.

"You can get more!" says Lance, sounding much too upbeat. "It never runs out." He pulls one of the goo hoses out of the wall panel and refills his own bowl with a squelch. "See?" he says, turning back and redeploying that smug half-smile that hardly ever seems to leave his face.

"I mean real food," Hunk says, giving Lance a pointed look. "You know, like pasta? sandwiches? fruit?"

"Pizza, bagels, tamales..." Lance is looking over Hunk's shoulder now, though he's clearly not seeing the plain white wall behind him.

"Yeah, exactly," Hunk says, waving his hand a bit to bring Lance back to the current reality. "Do you think they have anything here besides goo?"

"Coran," says Lance, his eyes sliding back to Hunk's face.

"Not Coran."

"No, Coran would know," Lance says, shaking his head. "He made us that Altean slug thing --" his entire face wrinkles up so severely at this that Hunk wishes he could take a picture "-- on our first big training day. If there's a real kitchen on this thing, he’s used it. Haven’t you, also? You made Keith and me those little bowls of mashed and sauteed whatever."

“I did that with the hotplates they have in the galley kitchens, but I can’t even do that if I don’t have any ingredients in the first place. I can’t exactly walk out the front door and find anything while we’re floating through the void.” 

“Are you sure?” Hunk can’t decide if this is an earnest question or not. He blinks. 

“Of course I’m sure,” he says after a moment, and Lance nods seriously. 

“Coran, then,” he says, tapping his spoon lightly against his bowl of goo. 

"Great, let's go ask him," Hunk claps his hands on his thighs and stands up.

"Oh no," says Lance, and he sits down on the nearest chair with a decisive thump. "I'm not getting dragged into another conversation that ends with him rambling about the time of King Bleegblorp and how he revolutionized Altean military training. I've gotten enough of that to last a lifetime, thank you very much."

"Alright, then stay here and finish that," Hunk jabs his chin toward Lance's refilled bowl. "And I'll go ask him."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a chapter doesn't have to be action and plot. a chapter can be three nerds in a tangent-filled conversation on the bridge of a giant castle-ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Edited for clarity/continuity 6/9/2020, because I can't leave anything alone]

"...and that's how you finish out the tuning sequence for the stabilizers, see? Quick as a stung clovenheifer!" Coran flips his hands off the controls with a flourish and turns to Pidge. "Your turn, number five."

“Got it.” She steps up to the helm and pulls up the three-dimensional diagram of the castle exterior, quickly jabbing her finger at different points of the model as she enters the sequences Coran had before. “This is fascinating,” she says as she works. “We can do all this remotely in a ship this large, and it even has the failsafe of an exterior interface if we need it? I’ve said it before, Coran, but the design here is really just --” 

“--incredible, isn’t it? King Alfor really brought the best minds into this one, Pidge. Why, Hieronymus Wimbelton was unquestionably the best engineer of his age, a luminary in a time when most were centuries behind! The intricacies of the castle are a wonder even to this day, which suggests he was thousands of years ahead of his time. Of course, we can expect no less from a man whose descendents include yours truly, icon and paragon of Altean capability.” 

“Uh-huh,” Pidge says absently, having pulled up a translucent keyboard in front of her on which she’s rapidly typing with both hands. The model of the castle spins and stops at various points, keeping up.

“Of course, even my skills have limits,” Coran is saying, now staring out into the array of stars. “I’ve never been one for woodworking, for example. That was more of my aunt Inga’s game -- that woman sculpted a table in the form of a pack of yalmor that could practically convince you they’d taken over your living room! I wonder where it is now. Probably --”

“Coran!” It’s Hunk’s voice that interrupts his reverie, and Coran turns from the window to see the yellow paladin looking awfully determined.

“What is it, number two?” Hunk raises his eyebrows and gives a little shake of his head.

“Alright, gonna let that one go for now,” he says, trying to focus on what’s important. “Is there. A kitchen. In this castle?”

“Ah, I see we’re all marveling at the castle’s design this morning -- yes, Hunk, there are several. You’ll be familiar with the kitchen on the third deck, where you and number five had an encounter with some malfunctioning goo hoses, then there are of course the kitchens available by the living quarters --”

“-- I don’t mean any of those,” Hunk interrupts. “None of those have ingredients, or real utensils, or like, a cooking...implement.”

“Well, that’s not strictly true, the goo is cooked, after all -- those implements just aren’t accessible without some structural interference. And the galley kitchens have --” 

“Coran, I mean like, a place with an oven -- and not like the one Pidge and I found before.” Hunk jerks his head toward her as the green paladin continues typing. “Because I’m pretty sure that wasn’t actually a kitchen.” 

“Oh, no, it wasn’t,” Coran confirms with a chuckle. “That is more accurately the smelting lounge.” 

“Smelting...lounge,” Hunk repeats, blinking. 

“Yes, you know, where people might go to unwind, create some vessels -- it can be very meditative.”

“I made...art?” He brightens for a moment. “You hear that, Pidge? I’m an artist!” She hums distractedly at him, still focused on the keyboard in front of her. 

“I suppose you are, in a manner of speaking.” Coran clears his throat. “In any case, you’ll find the pantry kitchen much more well-appointed for creating consumables.” Before Hunk can ask what exactly a ‘pantry kitchen’ is (although he does have a pretty good guess), Pidge cuts in.

“Alright, done.” Hunk and Coran turn in unison to see Pidge still standing in front of the console. The model of the castle is spinning, various access panels lighting up, the mechanisms inside visible through the model and repositioning themselves into alignment. Pidge isn’t touching the controls. 

“What’d you do, number five?” 

“I just automated the process, well, mostly -- we’ll have to initiate the sequence still, because I think it’s best if one of us supervises it, or is at least aware it’s running, as a backup, but the point is we won’t have to manually enter the realignment sequences when something might be out of whack or --” 

“--There’s already an automatic protocol.” Coran doesn’t sound upset, just slightly baffled.

“Ah.” Pidge looks a bit embarrassed, then her eyebrows lower. “Hey, wait a minute. If there’s already an automatic protocol, why were you making me do it manually?”

“Builds character!” Coran says jovially, holding up a finger for emphasis. “Why, if I’ve manually tuned stabilizers once, I’ve manually tuned stabilizers a thousand times, and I am brimming with character.” 

“Uh...huh.” 

“Ah, the old ‘this pointless task makes you a better person’ argument,” Hunk says, nostalgia creeping into his voice. “My uncle used to use that on me when it came to cleaning.” 

“Cleaning isn’t exactly pointless, Hunk.” Pidge shakes her head. 

“It’s just going to get dirty again! I mean I can see the purpose of cleaning dishes or machines that need it -- you’ve got rot and bugs and suboptimally operating mechanisms to worry about -- but dusting, sweeping, _polishing_?” Coran snorts at this, then clears his throat. 

“In any case, we’ll just set your protocol as a secondary option, number five --” he pulls up the translucent keyboard again “--and call it a day, eh? And I can get the keys to the pantry kitchen for number two.” 

“We’re still just going with that, huh.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hunk makes his announcement that evening in the lounge, standing in the doorway to address the rest of the team. 

“Didn’t you find a kitchen before?” Keith is curled up on the couch, his chin resting on the back. 

“Ah, you mean the cookies.”

“Right,” Keith says, raising his eyebrows almost imperceptibly. “Cookies.” 

“Turns out what we found was a kiln and a bunch of ground minerals,” says Pidge, adjusting her glasses. “He basically made Altean hobbyist ceramics.” 

“The important thing is that what we’ll be making now will be food.” Hunk punches one fist into his other palm decisively, and takes a step toward the rest of them arrayed around the room. “Who’s with me?” 

“I mean I’m very much with the idea of you making food, don’t get me wrong,” Lance says, not bothering to raise his head from the cushion it’s resting on. “But I don’t think I have to be directly involved. I’m more of an eater than a maker.” 

“I’m a disaster in a kitchen,” Shiro laughs. “Ask anyone --” he cuts off and frowns for a second. “Anyway, it wouldn’t go well.” 

“Pidge? Keith?” Hunk holds a hand out in each of their directions, palm up. Keith shrugs and sits up. 

“I’m good at chopping.” 

“And I’m guessing all the ingredients will be labeled in Altean, so I'd better come with you,” says Pidge, pushing herself up off the table she’s been perched on. “Let’s go.” 

“Oh, this is happening now?” Lance swings himself up to sit against the back of the couch instead of draping himself across four cushions. Hunk cocks his head at him. “What? I said I wouldn’t cook, not that I wouldn’t come.”

***

“...so Coran just gave you the keys?” Keith sounds skeptical, but that’s not out of the ordinary. 

“Well, to be clear, he gave me the keys and went --” Hunk stops walking and draws himself up to his full height, eyebrows knit dramatically, and does his best imitation of the Altean advisor’s voice “-- ‘I expect great things to come out of that kitchen, boy, or you aren’t half the paladin I thought you were.’”

“He did not call you ‘boy,’” Lance says, laughing. 

“Oh, he absolutely did.” Hunk shudders and gets moving again. “And I have no intention to repeat the experience, so if you all will practice good skills in taking direction today, I’d appreciate it.” 

“No problem here,” says Keith, shrugging and glancing at Lance sidelong. “Not sure about all of us, of course.” Hunk isn’t sure if Lance misses the dig or decides to ignore it, but he continues as if he hasn’t noticed. 

“D’you think Allura ever makes pancakes? She seems like she’d like pancakes. I mean, honestly, who doesn’t? They’re the perfect food -- no tough techniques, no special equipment --” he’s ticking off criteria on his fingers, and despite his long legs seems to have invested himself enough in his argument that he’s no longer keeping up with the rest of them. “Hearty, yet sweet, kosher, versatile, no rare ingredients--” 

“--we don’t know what ingredients are rare for Alteans, Lance.” Pidge’s interruption seems to snap him out of it, and Lance performs a half-skipping gallop to catch up with the group. 

“And we’re here,” Hunk says, sliding the translucent rectangular chip Coran gave him this morning into a panel by the door they’ve just reached. It looks no different from the doors to their chambers, but opens into a vast room full of shining metal appliances of so many different sizes and shapes that no one is quite sure where to start looking, except for Hunk, who stares straight ahead, tearing up a bit, and then races across the room to the far side. 

“Look at all! This! Counter space!” He spreads his arms out as far as they will go and leans down onto the bright white stone, still barely covering a fifth of the length of the surface, which spans the entire far wall. Pidge clears her throat.

“I guess we’d better start exploring,” she says pointedly. 

“Alright!” Hunk whips around to face the rest of them still framed in the doorway. “Pidge, Lance, go figure out what over there is a heat source--” he gestures broadly toward the bay of gleaming machinery and appliances that fills the left side of the room “-- Keith, you’re with me. That --” Hunk indicates a large doorway in the opposite wall, leading into an area filled with what looks like an entire bank of giant middle school lockers more than anything else “-- has got to be food storage. Let’s see what we’re working with, ingredient-wise, and get you showing off some knife skills, since we already know that’s where your strengths lie.” 

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to make anything with...Altean ingredients?” Keith asks, as he moves to join Hunk and the others make their way over to confront the dizzying array of alien technology. 

“If I know one thing, and one thing only, it is this,” says Hunk seriously. “Given any set of potential ingredients, some time, and -- ideally -- some way to apply heat, I can make not only something, but a meal. Or else my name isn’t Hunk Garrett.” Keith is looking at him, but not with the awed respect he was hoping for. 

“Well, is it?” 

“What do you mean, ‘is it’?” 

“Is your name Hunk Garrett? I’ve never known your last name.” Hunk looks utterly betrayed, and Keith spreads his hands wide. “Do you know mine?” 

“Of course, it’s --” he pauses, frowns, shakes his head “-- no, no I don’t.” 

“Kogane. See? Now you know. And now I know. So we can move on.” And with this final conclusion, he pulls open the door to the first locker.


	4. Chapter 4

“If we’re going to make pancakes, we’ll need milk.” Lance is laser-focused for the time being, it seems. “Luckily, we just need Kaltenecker for that --” 

“--who?” Pidge isn’t sure Lance can hear her from his position lounging across the counter; she’s also not sure there’s much point in asking. The past few minutes have been nothing but an ongoing string of thoughts about potential space pancakes; meanwhile, she’s been trying to sort through a series of multicolored pipelines of varying size, having crawled into a space under one of the larger pieces of machinery on this side of the room. Blocking him out to focus on her investigation only works to a certain extent. 

“Kaltenecker -- the cow we got at the space mall.” Apparently he can hear her just fine. “I’ll excuse that you forgot her name in like, less than 24 hours, given the utter tragedy of the RCA adapter situation -- anyway, we gave her a room on the biome deck --” 

“-- who’s we?” 

“Coran and me. Now listen --” Pidge is glad he can’t see her roll her eyes as she traces the line of one of the pipes down here, trying to figure out what exactly hooks up to what up on the surface. This appliance looks the most like a stove, which is why she chose it to start with -- based on its flat surface with three raised circles of bluish metal spaced at even intervals. There's a series of switches and dials to the side, as well as two dataports -- one slot about the size of a credit card and one tiny rectangular hole that must fit something. She tried every combination of switch and dial that she thinks might be safe already to no result, so an investigation under the hood seemed like the best next step. Unfortunately, the only Altean text down here is printed on several labels attached to the pipe connections. FLAMMABLE: CAUTION. That probably means she shouldn’t try much more. Pidge sighs and reemerges out into the open space to find Lance is still talking, lying full length along this end of the counter now, gesturing emphatically at the ceiling and apparently content to monologue. 

"-- and even if we did find eggs, there’s no guarantee they’d have the same consistency, right, like what animals would they even come from out here? Some kind of space lizard? Lizard egg pancakes? I just don’t know if I can see it. Maybe it would be fine, but don’t lizards have those eggs with the soft shells? How do you even crack those bad boys open, anyway? Of course we can’t rule out the possibility of finding some kind of space chicken, or space duck -- duck eggs are incredible, Pidge, have you had duck eggs?” 

“Hey, Lance?” Pidge resists the urge to drop her head into her hands and instead clasps them behind her back. 

“Uh, yeah?” He tilts his head back so he can see her, albeit upside down. 

"Do you think you could, maybe --" she looks at him, sees he is just barely on pause "-- never mind. I'm gonna go see how Hunk and Keith are doing." 

“Oh, great, I’ll come with you.” He swings his legs down and his torso up in one smooth motion and drops off the counter. 

“Mhm,” says Pidge. “Great.”

“What’s shakin’, bacon?” Lance says once they’re near enough to the doorway that Hunk and Keith will hear them. Pidge, behind him now, gives in to the impulse to hold her head, just for a moment. “Have we found any, by the way? Bacon, that is. Not for me, I mean, but Hunk, I know you’re into that BLT lifestyle --” 

“-- We need Hunk on the stoves,” Pidge drops her hands and steps in front of Lance quickly before he can continue. “I can’t figure them out, and the only labeling is telling me everything is flammable. You’re the engineer; I’m the linguist. Seems like I should help Keith figure out ingredients and you and Lance should deal with the machinery. Situation.” She stops, takes a breath. Please let this work. Hunk glances back and forth between her and Lance. Keith, next to him, appears thoroughly occupied taking various containers and bags from one of the lockers and laying them out on the table in the center of this space, which Pidge assumes they’ve confirmed is the pantry. 

“Yeah, alright,” Hunk says after a moment, shrugging agreeably. “Let’s go, buddy.” He claps Lance on the shoulder and turns him around, firmly, but Lance doesn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, great, you can fill me in on what you’ve found so far -- do you think there’s some kind of egg substitute they might have instead? My sister once brought powdered eggs home from a mission. They are nasty on their own, but maybe in a batter that won’t matter? Then again, the purpose of an egg usually includes being in liquid form, right, that’s what you said, anyway, so maybe…” 

As soon as they’re out of earshot, Keith pauses briefly and glances at Pidge, before going back to sorting and stacking things. 

“Surprised you put up with that for five minutes, even,” he says softly. 

“I was in a cupboard for most of it.” 

“That explains it.” Keith’s smile is a tiny flash so quick Pidge thinks she might have imagined it. “These are dry,” he says, indicating the largest pile at the end of the table. “Mostly look like grains, some legumes, and then a bunch of things that are dehydrated and powdered and could be pretty much anything.” He pauses, looks at her as if to check she’s paying attention. Pidge nods. “These --” a smaller pile of bags “-- look like dried fungi. I figure we should probably be most careful with those. Not sure how many of them we can actually eat.” 

“Mushrooms are the danger zone,” Pidge agrees decisively. “Good call. Have you found anything fresh yet?” 

“Guessing that would be over there.” Keith jerks his head at a row of the lockers at the end, which Pidge realizes now are humming, presumably with electricity. 

“Got it,” she says, pulling out her Altean language study notebook, or the smaller version she carries around with her, anyway. Her detailed notes are back in her quarters, but she doubts she’ll need subjunctive cases here. “I’d better start reading some labels.”


	5. Chapter 5

“I think some kind of flax egg substitute may end up being our best bet,” Hunk says, as he continues to steer Lance back over to the other side of the kitchen. “I don’t think we’re gonna stumble upon any fresh eggs any time soon, but if you want to keep thinking about it, you’re welcome to -- now what was happening over here?” The cupboard is still open under the appliance Pidge had been looking at; Lance steps out from under Hunk’s arm to gesture at it. 

“She was under there,” he says helpfully. Hunk keeps himself from laughing, but it’s a close call, and he’s sure he exhales audibly at least once. 

“Yeah, I got that.” 

“Cool, good, yeah you’re sharp, you’re on it.” Lance strokes his chin thoughtfully as he peers into the space under the cooktop. Hunk touches his shoulder, and Lance drops his hand to his side. “You know as much as I do,” he says in a flatter tone. “Almost definitely more, actually.” He sounds a bit hopeless, and Hunk squeezes his shoulder in response before letting go. 

“Well, let’s take a look,” he says, and promptly lies down on the floor so he can see the series of tubes in its entirety. It’s clear enough to him what’s going where. The only thing that’s not clear is what exactly is in each pipe. If the color-coding is consistent, at least they’ve got that going for them -- but after the oven in the “smelting lounge,” he’s not even confident in their ability to identify a heat source. There doesn’t seem to be a quintessence line, and he seriously doubts the Alteans are burning any kind of gas for cooking. As he sorts through the lines, he can hear Lance from somewhere above him. 

“Well, once you solve the egg problem, we still have the question of leavening, right? Is there some kind of space baking powder?” 

“I’m guessing it would be easier to harvest our own yeast than to analyze anything the Alteans might give us,” Hunk replies absently, wondering if there is, in fact, any ambient yeast in the castle. 

“How do we do that? Build a yeast trap? Lure them in with tasty treats? What does yeast eat, anyway?” Before Hunk can reply there’s a clunk from the machinery above that sounds so loudly that from his position he can feel it reverberate through his skull, making him clench his eyes shut. It’s followed by a yelp from Lance and then a quiet humming that keeps getting louder until he realizes that it is not, in fact, only his ears ringing, and something is actually happening. Hunk opens his eyes cautiously to a very different view than he had before. The network of pipes is still there, but the tubes now glow brightly in their varied colors, and above them he can see three strange honeycomb-like sections of the top of this thing. It takes him a second to realize Lance is shouting his name now, his voice about an octave too high and to Hunk’s ears, much too loud.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here, buddy,” he says in as reassuring a tone as he can manage as he extracts himself from the cupboard. Lance is crouched about fifteen feet away from the appliance now, looking at it as if it’s about to attack him. When Hunk turns around, he can kind of see why. What he’d originally thought was a cooktop has transformed -- the three circles that had been there originally are flipped up to reveal clusters of spigots and tubes that look ready to fire all manner of things, and the humming coming from the whole setup certainly isn’t helping. Hunk frowns.

“What did you do?” he asks, turning back to Lance. 

“I didn’t do anything!” Lance whisper-shouts indignantly. “I was just standing there, talking about yeast, and then I leaned back and it -- oh.” His tone shifts to one of guilt, and he stands up slowly from his crouch, every movement sheepish. “I guess I leaned...on a button.” 

“Okay,” says Hunk. “So, this thing does not appear to be a stove, that much is clear.” His head is still ringing a bit, and he can feel the pain trying to transform itself into nausea. None of that. “But whatever it is, it’s at home in a kitchen, so the good news is it’s probably not a weapon, and you can come back over here.”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, I didn’t think it was -- it’s clearly some kind of Altean cooking. Machine. You know, because having fifty different hoses come out of a machine with one command is a totally normal kind of cooking machine thing to do, right? Right.” Lance is all false bravado, as if he wasn’t taking up a defensive position mere moments before. 

“I mean, it probably is a totally normal thing to do, for this particular thing, but since I don’t know what this thing is, I don’t know exactly what it’s doing, which is kind of why we were holding off on pressing any buttons.” Hunk is glad to find he can still manage patience.

“It’s not like I did it on purpose!” 

“I know. But...maybe you should go see if there’s a manual. You know how most things come with a manual? It seems like this kitchen should really come with a manual.” It’s a good idea, even if he does feel a little bad about its secondary purpose. If he really is going anywhere with this pancakes idea, the processing time will be good for him, but it's also clear that between how much he’s pushing both people’s metaphorical buttons and physical, actual buttons, Lance needs to be out of the kitchen for a while. 

“You need me to go find a manual? Where? How’m I supposed to know --” 

“Go check with Coran?” Hunk says, hoping maybe that’ll get a better response than it has in the past. 

“Do I have to?” Hunk pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes, keeping his tone even and ignoring the way his head is still pounding quietly in the background. 

“Remember how I said I needed you all to follow directions in order for this whole kitchen thing to work.” 

“So, yes?” Lance sounds more dejected about it than it seems like he needs to be. 

“If you’d rather ask Allura --” 

“Now, there’s a good idea! Allura’s smart and funny and capable and strong and --” 

“-- yes, okay,” Hunk cuts him off. This could go on for a long while otherwise, he knows from experience. “Go find Allura and ask her.”


	6. Chapter 6

Lance figures Allura is probably on the bridge. Considering they’ll be at the headquarters of the Blade of Marmora in less than 24 hours, he’s pretty sure there’s nowhere else she would be, regardless of how late it is. He’s not sure how late it is, anyway -- he’s never really gotten the hang of timekeeping in the castle. The time they’ve spent in the kitchen may have been anywhere from ten minutes to an hour -- all he’s sure of is that it’s somewhere between “dinner” and “bed.” He sets out from the kitchen at something between a walk and a jog, trying hard to ignore the embarrassment sitting right on the edges of his awareness. If he pushes himself very strongly to focus on other things, it’ll go away, right? 

“So if Hunk’s space yeast covers leavening, what’s left? Flour, right? Flour comes from wheat, wheat comes from Earth, so that’s a dead end -- what else does flour come from? Rye, barley, potatoes sometimes, rice --” He stops as a shadow appears on the floor, coming out from a hallway a few yards ahead of him that crosses the corridor he’s on. The shadow moves toward him. 

_Bigger than a breadbox_ , he thinks, then shakes his head a bit. Since when is he playing twenty questions with a weird floor shadow? There’s a quiet but persistent scrubbing sound that accompanies its movement, and Lance feels an echo of the fear he felt earlier, but mostly confusion. He frowns and looks up slowly, trying to find the source, until he’s looking at a point about 15 feet off the ground where a small fuzzy creature is sort of...swimming through the air. 

“Um, hello?” He says, and the creature stops moving and curls inward. It doesn’t really have a distinguishable head or neck, but its two big eyes are now at an angle to peer down at him from within the ball of yellow fluff. “Who...what...are you?” 

He’s not quite settled that that’s the right question to be asking, but the creature seems satisfied and begins scrubbing forward again at a rapid clip, descending toward him at an angle. “You’re kind of cute,” Lance muses as it approaches and he can see a bit more detail. There are two little glowing patches on what he supposes are its cheeks, almost like Altean markings. Lance notices those markings are approaching his face awfully quickly now and ducks. 

“Hey!” he says, just as the creature zips over him and lets out a startled kind of chirp. He stands back up slowly and turns around to see it floating at face level now, peering at him. “Did I ask for you to smash your face into mine? Normally that requires some kind of consent from the other party.” The creature chirps again, quieter this time, and softly bops its face against Lance’s cheek. It’s the tiniest bit of pressure, and he softens a bit at it. 

“Well, alright, that’s fine, I guess. You’d better come with me -- I’m not sure where you’re supposed to be, but if there are weird fuzzy aliens roaming the halls, it seems like Allura should at least know.” He reaches a hand out to the creature tentatively, which mirrors his gesture with one of its many little feet. Then it stops and pushes forward to curl against his hand. It’s surprisingly soft, he thinks, for a weird little alien...thing. He tucks it under his arm and keeps walking toward the bridge. 

“I’m glad you weren’t anything scarier, little buddy,” he says as they set off. “I don’t know if I could deal with more scary stuff right now, after that whole thing in the kitchen, not --” he knows he sounds a bit too defensive, but he can’t stop himself “-- not like I was really scared, I mean I was kind of scared, sure, but mostly for Hunk, I mean he was the one who was inside the thing!” He glances over at the creature, which looks back at him blankly. “Hunk -- he’s my best friend, and he was in this machine when it just kind of -- shifted like some kind of transformer!” The creature blinks a few times, and Lance stops in the middle of the hallway to hold it in front of him so he can talk to it properly. 

“Listen, of course that was scary -- it’s scary when giant things with your best friend inside go clunk unexpectedly, you know? That’s normal. That’s a normal thing to be scared about” The creature hasn’t made a peep, and he can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. “I wasn’t scared for me; I was scared for him,” he goes on, hoping the silence is at least a judgment-neutral thing. “Because it would really suck if anything happened to Hunk, obviously. I mean who would I share all my good ideas with without Hunk?” A few more blinks at that, but no further response. 

“Not that he was gonna die --” Lance doesn’t let himself go too far down that path “-- of course not. He’s smarter than that. Who’s smarter than Hunk? No one, that’s who -- but smart or not, you can still get hurt, like when a giant machine sounds like it wants to eat you and everyone you love -- you know what, never mind.” He grunts, exasperated. The creature hasn’t so much as squirmed, let alone expressed any kind of sympathy. It just keeps staring at him with those giant eyes, and Lance is sick of it. 

“You can go back to whatever your business was, since clearly recognizing major life events your friends go through and responding to them appropriately is not a skill you have.” He bends down and lets the creature go near the floor, moving on in the direction of the bridge, but as he walks away he hears that same scrubbing sound. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees that it’s back a few feet in the air and following him. “Well, fine then, come with,” he says. “But I’m not carrying you. You lost that privilege.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6/21 - Realized this actually needs to all be part of this scene, so this week's update is really just an expansion of Chapter 7. ~~Hoping to put Ch. 8 up early (possibly even tomorrow), though, to make up for it a bit.~~ (well, that didn't happen)

“It will add seven or eight vargas, but I don’t think we really have any other choice if we don’t want to fly directly through a Galra fleet.” Coran sounds exhausted, and Allura can’t blame him. 

“If it’s based on probabilities, couldn’t we just take the risk?” Shiro asks from where he’s sitting on the steps with his legs stretched out in front of him. “What’s the likelihood that we run into them?” 

“According to number five’s algorithm --” Coran consults his screen before turning around to face the others, his voice pitching up about an octave as he continues “-- ninety-seven point two percent?” 

“Ah.” Shiro’s mouth quirks in a halfhearted attempt at rueful amusement. 

“That’s much too high to just take the chance, I’m afraid,” Allura says with a sigh. She leans back against her right-hand control pillar, thinking. There’s no reason they should risk running into imperial forces on the way to the headquarters of the Blade of Marmora. They’re taking enough of a risk interacting with the Blades in the first place, as far as she’s concerned. They’re still galra -- and the nature by which they got in contact makes her extra wary. Who knows how else Ulaz may have interfered with Shiro’s arm? She knows she can’t voice that concern again, not without running through the same argument as before, but it’s a question that stays at the forefront of her mind regardless. 

“So what are our options?” Shiro leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Go around somehow?” 

“We’ll have to give the area a wide berth -- hence my earlier time estimate. Time is of the essence, of course, but staying alive is of even more of the essence. All of the essence, perhaps.”

“Couldn’t we take the risk and just wormhole out if things are bad?”

“Negative, Shiro. Allura’s been taxed enough as it is, and I only replaced the teludav lenses this morning. They haven’t had time to settle in. We need to give her _and_ them some time.”

Allura had been about to object to Coran acting as if she were some fragile maiden who didn’t know her own limits, but he is right about the lenses at least. She slumps further against the control pillar. It’s also inarguably true that she _is_ tired.

“Well, then I guess we’re taking a detour,” Shiro says, levering himself up from the steps and stretching. He stops suddenly and lowers his arms to cross them. "Hang on, where are we taking a detour to? We can't just...tell navigation to take us around the potential galra zone, can we?" 

"Ah, not exactly," says Coran, perking up, although Allura doesn't see what there is to be happy about. He turns back to the helm and brings up a starmap on the viewscreen. "We can't tell it to avoid that area just using the coordinates we have for the headquarters, but --" he taps a few keys to bring an area of the map into greater focus "-- luckily, there's an old Altean outpost that should serve us well as a waypoint. If we set the coordinates to Entuk first, then from there use the coordinates Ulaz gave us, we should be able to get to the home of these 'Blades' relatively easily without going anywhere near an imperial fleet!" 

“Coran -- did you say an Altean outpost?” Allura is suddenly far more awake, and she stands up quickly. An Altean outpost on the edge of a space that isn’t directly controlled by the Galra? 

“Don’t get too excited, princess,” Coran says gently, seeing the light in her eyes. “It’s likely been inactive for millennia by now.” Allura presses her lips together so she doesn’t give voice to the tiny flame of hope she can feel starting to grow in her chest as the silence stretches on. 

“Alright, I’ll go tell the others,” Shiro says finally, and both of them turn just as the entrance to the bridge slides open. 

“Tell us what?” Lance asks from the doorway. He’s standing there having clearly stopped midstep, a small fuzzy creature Allura is pretty sure she recognizes from Pidge’s quarters hovering over his shoulder.

“We’re going to have a slight delay,” she tells him.

“We need to take a detour to avoid an imperial fleet,” Shiro says at the same time. Lance looks back and forth between the two of them. 

“Can one of you run that by me again?” 

“We need to go around an area of potentially very high Galra activity,” Coran says. “So we’ll be adding approximately eight vargas to our trip to the headquarters of the Blade of Marmora.” 

“Oh, okay, and a varga is…an animal?” Lance says hesitantly, squinting slightly. Shiro gives a bark of laughter before he can stop himself. 

“An hour, basically,” he corrects. 

“Got it,” says Lance. “Staying out of the Galra hot zone. Cool. Though if it were Zarkon’s fleet --”

“--We’re not flying directly into Zarkon’s fleet, either,” Allura says firmly.

“Why are you here, Number Four?” Coran asks from the console.

“I keep telling you, I’m taller than Keith!” Lance says irritably. “Shiro and Hunk being ahead of me, sure, fine. I’m reasonable. I can accept that, but I have -- easily! -- two inches on Keith, and if he’s been telling you differently --” 

“Lance,” Shiro interrupts, moving forward to put a hand on his shoulder. “What do you need?” 

“Oh, uh,” Lance pauses mid-tirade. “I…” He hesitates, and the fuzzy creature bumps into the back of his shoulder encouragingly. “Oh! I need Allura.” 

“Need me for what?” Allura asks. 

“Pancakes.” 

“Pan...cakes?” Allura continues more diplomatically. “Could you expand on that, perhaps?” 

“Yeah, we’re going to make pancakes, so Hunk was looking at the stove, and then it just went --” he makes an exploding gesture widely with both hands, and the fuzzy creature trills as it dodges out of the way “-- and suddenly had all these faucet-looking things, and we need it to not make any sudden movements or attack anyone else, because I don’t think Hunk’s heart could take it.” He finishes and lowers his hands, looking around at them all. Allura frowns. 

“I think you’ll want Coran for that. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about the kitchens, apart from the food goo.” 

“Oh, but Coran, he’s --” Lance stops as the fuzzy creature bumps against his hand, and he scratches it absently on the top of what Allura presumes is its head. “Alright,” he says instead. 

“This will be an adventure, young man!” Coran says, crossing the room in a few long strides and turning Lance around by the shoulder. “Now, when you say stove, to which of the querlays are you referring?” Shiro turns to Allura as the door swishes back shut and their voices fade down the hall. 

“I guess we have some pancakes to look forward to, at least.” 

“Yes, what are pancakes, exactly?” Allura tries to piece out the word in her head, though the translator doesn’t seem to want to make it make that much sense in Altean. “I would have asked Lance, but, well.” She’s not sure how to finish that sentence, but luckily Shiro laughs understandingly and grabs the back of his neck with one hand.

“Yeah, he’s a little intense with you, huh.” He glances over at her, and she drops her eyes to the floor. She doesn’t want to imply she doesn’t care about Lance; it’s just -- well. 

“I fear it’s entirely misplaced,” she says with a sigh. “I can’t -- I mean, I don’t...” She trails off, looking over at Shiro now, but she can’t seem to find any more words. She doesn’t have words for what she means, that she’s not -- and has never really been -- in line with Altean norms in this particular area. She can’t help but see it as a flaw, her failure to relate properly to different sorts of people. 

“To be fair, I think it’s a bit misplaced from his end, too,” Shiro says, thankfully breaking what’s become a rather long silence. “Seems to me like that level of confidence is usually reserved for people who have no idea what they’re actually feeling.” Allura’s not sure what to say to that, but it feels true. After all, for her it’s never been a question of what she’s feeling, just what she’s supposed to feel. 

“I -- that makes sense, I suppose,” she manages aloud. 

“They’re a type of food, by the way,” he says in a lighter tone. “Pretty common across Earth in different forms, depending on the culture. I’m guessing he means American-style ones, though, so sort of fluffy, flour- and milk-based, usually served with something sweet.” 

“Milk-based?” she asks. She supposes it makes sense that humans also nurse their young. Now that she thinks about it, she’s seen a few pictures of Hunk's and Lance’s families, at least, and their anatomy wouldn’t make sense otherwise. It seems a strange coincidence, though, not to mention an interesting ingredient in something meant for adults to consume. 

“Yeah,” says Shiro, nodding absently. “They’re good. Hey, Allura?” 

“Yes?” 

“What can we expect to find on Entuk exactly?” Allura feels the tiny flame in her chest flare again, and when she speaks she can hear her own intensity, though she tries to temper it as best she can. 

“Well, I’m not sure about ‘exactly,’ but Coran said it was an old Altean outpost. If it’s never been controlled by the Galra -- which, it appears, it hasn’t -- it seems to me like there could still be something there. Something, or -- well, someone.” She clears her throat a bit and sobers suddenly, realizing as she gives voice to her hope how infinitesimally small it should be. Even if it is somehow the case that there are people -- Alteans -- left alive, the isolation of thousands of years may have made a place and a people nearly unrecognizable to her. But if there are Alteans alive -- any Alteans, whatever their situation now -- those are her people, and her place is leading them. She realizes as she thinks this that Shiro has been talking for a few moments now, and turns her attention back to him, trying to swallow the bit of guilt at having missed his first few words. 

“-- not sure what state they would be in, and our priority should really lie with getting to the Blade of Marmora headquarters as quickly as possible.” 

“Of course,” she says, trying to put together what it is he’s implying. 

“I’m sorry, Allura, but I don’t see how we can justify anything beyond using it as another set of coordinates to get around the danger zone.” His tone is heavy, and she feels a wave of grief cover her hope until it’s just a tiny flicker. 

“No, I --” she clears her throat, blinks once against the pricking of tears “-- I understand completely.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6/28: Just in case this applies to anyone, last week's update was an expansion of Ch. 7, and you may want to backtrack if you haven't read that since I updated it.

"Did we decide this was baking soda or something?" Keith asks, passing a foil-wrapped block into Pidge's field of vision. 

"I mean, ideally we'd run that through the spectrometer in the lab and figure out its chemical formula like with the others, but I'm pretty sure it's something like that -- there’s a list of steps on the back here, see?" She points to the text, numbered with Altean numerals, and Keith nods seriously. 

“Okay, what am I looking at?” 

“Well, a lot of it I’m not sure what it says, but there’s a verb here that means ‘to rise,’ so it seems likely that it’s some kind of leavening, but like I said, I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I took it to the lab.”

"Hm," Hunk says, and pinches off a small piece of the chalky stuff, rubbing it between his fingers until it's all dissolved into powder. “You want to add a sample of it to your pile, Pidge? I’ll keep the rest here.” She narrows her eyes, suspicious.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asks. Hunk shrugs at her.

“I’m going to put it in some batter and see what happens when I cook it,” he says. “Seems like that’ll tell us pretty quickly whether it’s some kind of rising agent or not.” 

“I mean, I guess,” she says. “As long as you don’t actually _eat_ any of it until I get back with some answers.”

“How stupid do you think I am?” Hunk says indignantly. 

Keith leans around him to add, “I’ll keep an eye on him.” 

“Thanks,” she says, pointedly ignoring Hunk’s face as she adds some scrapings of the block to an empty one of the tiny containers she’s been collecting samples in. She gathers up the pile in front of her -- a stack of a dozen or so little boxes -- and heads out to the door, nearly colliding with Coran and Lance as it slides open to reveal them on the other side. She lets out a startled yelp as the topmost container topples off the stack, only to see Coran’s hand shoot out to catch it before it hits the floor. 

“Ah, apologies, Number Five,” he says, offering it back to her. “And where are you off to with what appears to be half my spice cupboard?” 

“The lab,” she says as she tucks the fallen sample back on top of its fellows. “I need to run some tests and see what these are -- and most importantly if they’re safe for human consumption.” 

“Oh, nice!” Lance says excitedly. “Did you find any eggs?” Pidge blinks at him. 

“I mean, no,” she says. “At least, not unless they’re the eggs of something nearly microscopic.” 

“Fair,” he says, screwing up his brows and nodding. “I’ll keep an eye out.” 

“Alright, well, carry on, Number Five, I’m just here to help explain to Lance how the querlays work!” 

“Querlays?” she asks -- if she remembers properly, that’s an Altean word for..device, appliance, something of that kind, though it’s more specialized, and she’s not surprised the translator doesn’t seem to bother trying to put it into English. Coran gestures enthusiastically to the side of the kitchen that’s full of machinery and grins. 

“Just another way the castle’s design is remarkable, we’ve got more than enough technology here to make a feast that would satisfy a choferiak! Not that we’ve ever had occasion to, to my knowledge,” he adds this last conspiratorially, half-covering his mouth with one hand, though he hasn’t lowered the volume of his voice at all. Before Pidge can ask for a more detailed description of a choferiak, she hears a familiar trill and feels something bump into the back of her shoulder, turning to find --

“Turing!” she says, delighted to see the caterpillar, even if it is several decks away from where it probably should be. “Where did you find it?” She scratches it below its chin, looking to the others for answers. 

“Oh, he’s yours? He followed me to the bridge. We had words,” Lance finishes darkly, frowning. 

“Uh, okay?” Pidge doesn’t have the time to get into all that. “You do know it can’t talk, right?” 

“Talk, shmalk, he knows what he did.” 

“Why -- never mind,” she says, shaking her head. Lance deciding Turing is a “he” is not a priority right now. “I’ll take it back with me on my way to the lab. I usually try to at least keep them on the deck near the living quarters, so they don’t get lost.” 

“There are more of those?” 

“Well, yeah,” Pidge says, cradling the samples all in one arm so she can tuck Turing under her other one. “I’ve got three of them.” 

“Are the others nicer?” 

“Um,” she starts, but she’s saved from answering what’s an absurd question even by Lance standards by Coran, who claps him on the shoulder and moves both of them out of the doorway. 

“I thought we were on a mission, Number Four,” he says, gesturing toward the kitchen as a whole. “Something about pancakes and saving Hunk’s life? Though I have to say, I don’t really understand that last bit, since last I checked there’s nothing lethal in here!” 

Pidge ducks into the hallway before she can process Lance’s response, juggling samples and caterpillar, grateful that the door slides shut automatically behind her.


	9. Chapter 9

“So you’re just going to mix these together and see what happens?” Keith asks from the other side of the island. Hunk nods, still stirring the bowl in front of him with the silicone scraper he had eventually found in one of the kitchen’s dozens of drawers. Three more bowls line the counter in front of him, each about half-filled with goopy mixture. 

“That’s the plan, Kogane my man.” Keith’s brows somehow furrow even lower at this; he frowns, gaze still fixed on the bowls. 

“Don’t call me that,” he says quietly. The last place people called him by his last name alone was the Garrison, and usually in circumstances he’d much rather not think about. Keith shoves those memories to the back of his mind, trying not to examine them too closely. Of course when he does that, it leaves the front of his mind free to focus on everything he’s been worrying about ever since he first saw Ulaz’s blade. He frowns, shakes his head a little to clear that away as well, which Hunk apparently takes as further emphasis. 

“Okay,” he agrees, wiping the scraper off on the side of the bowl so the rest of the dough he’s mixing drops in. “I can respect that -- anyway, yeah. We’ve got four different mixtures here -- Pidge found two raising agents and two grains, so I figure we’ll combine them -- with some water -- every way they can be and see what happens, for starters. Figure out how the different flours respond to different leavening. And apart from these, I’m gonna throw together a couple of starters and see if we can find any, uh, space yeast, from the castle. Who knows what’s in here?” 

“I guess you’re going to,” Keith says with a shrug. “Never really got into baking.” There wasn’t much reason for cookies and cakes while he was out living in the desert, tracking messages he didn’t know yet were from Galra ships, or getting pinged by Blue’s calls from where she was buried in the canyon. Food was a means to survival, not an avenue for creativity. If he was going to spend his energy on putting together a meal, it was going to be one he’d get at least as much energy and use out of as he put in. And before that, well, there hadn’t exactly been tons of opportunities to experiment in a kitchen. 

“Oh, you’re missing out, buddy.” Hunk shrugs, then smiles across at him. “We’ll get you on the baked goods train soon enough!” 

“If you say so,” says Keith. The bowls just smell like variations on play-doh to him, which is not exactly appetizing, but he figures it must all be part of the process. He’s considering asking Hunk to explain a bit more about it when Lance’s voice cuts in, shouting from the other end of the kitchen. 

“Guys? You still in there? Coran’s here to talk to us about that giant terrifying death machine that tried to kill us!” Keith looks at Hunk, who looks back, eyebrows raised, and shrugs. 

“Be out in a minute!” he shouts back. He grabs a roll of some kind of flexible sheeting from an open cupboard and rips off a section of it to offer to Keith. “Help me wrap these up? Loosely, though.” Keith nods, taking the sheeting. Play-doh experiments are certainly at least more relaxing than sitting around and worrying about what’ll happen when they get to where they’re going. 

\--

“...and then it attacked Hunk!” Lance is finishing as they enter the main kitchen again. He’s standing in front of a giant appliance, easily twice the size of the stove Keith used -- well, occasionally used -- in his desert house. The thing has dozens of tubes coming out of it in a bunch of colors, but nothing that Keith thinks looks like it could attack anyone. He shakes his head: trust Lance to read something harmless as some kind of alien superweapon. 

“There is nothing on that whatsoever that looks like it could attack Hunk,” he says irritably. 

“I’m sorry, Keith, are you not seeing this?” Lance’s hands move around the surface of it so quickly that Keith isn’t at all sure which thing he’s supposed to be seeing. 

“Am I not seeing what? Do you see anything here that looks like, I don’t know, a knife? a gun?” 

“I mean, it _was_ pretty scary when it all just shifted like that,” Hunk interrupts, putting a hand on Lance’s shoulder before he can respond. “But I don’t think it's a threat now.” 

“It’s definitely not,” Coran says, laughing. “It’s just the staples querlay! I’m not sure how you managed to activate it without meaning to, but it’s certainly ready to go now.” He smacks the top of the querlay twice in quick succession, and it starts humming quietly. “So, what are you hoping for? A little yalmor fat? Some juniberry sugar?” 

“Wait -- it can do that?” Hunk is looking at Coran open-mouthed, his eyes wide. Keith is lost. 

“Do what?” 

“Of course it can -- all your pantry staples at the touch of a button! Of course, it hasn’t been used in uh...several millennia, but in theory it ought to still work. Nothing doing but to try, as my aunt Inga used to say!” He grins widely at the three of them. “So, what do you need?” 

“That’s...that’s how it works? It just gives you whatever you need?” Lance asks incredulously; Coran starts to answer, but before he can get a word out, Lance continues, voice rising with every word until he’s practically shouting. “Then why does it sound like a quiznaking nuclear missile when it opens? Just to terrify everyone around it?”

“Well, I imagine it’s a bit out of practice,” Coran says, shrugging.

It turns out that’s not exactly how it works, but Lance’s guess is good enough, it seems. Coran is in his element as he walks them through the machine’s control panel over the next ten minutes or so, and Keith absorbs enough of his enthusiastic digressions to understand that the querlay will produce any Altean pantry staple on demand, and a few from other alien cultures as well. Hunk seems entirely fascinated, and asks Coran rapid-fire questions as he goes through the panel, something that delights them both to no end. Lance, meanwhile, retreats back to the counter and sits down on the floor against it, muttering something about there being nothing wrong with being cautious around alien technology. 

“So, what should we do with this?” Keith asks when Hunk and Coran seem to be winding down. 

“Hm?” Coran asks. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, we still don’t know if it’s safe for human consumption, right?” 

“We could take samples to Pidge in the lab,” Hunk says. He looks a bit pained. “Though I was going to get those starters together so they have some time overnight --” 

“-- I’ll do it,” Keith says, relieved to have a reason to leave the kitchen. It’s not bad when it’s just Hunk explaining things, but the two of them together plus Lance’s whole...deal...is getting overwhelming. “I just need more of those containers to put a little bit of everything in.” Hunk nods, pointing at a cupboard under the counter opposite where Lance has apparently fallen asleep, his head resting on a drawer handle. 

“There’s a bunch down there. Thanks, Keith. Coran, can I pick your brain about some of these things while I try to capture some migratory microbe colonies?” 

“Of course!” Coran is halfway to the pantry already and in no way asking for clarification. “Why, I can tell you all about my boyhood baking days -- that was never Inga’s style, but my cousin Ira made the best sepkifruit pudding you’ve ever tasted.” Hunk laughs, following, and Keith sighs as the room quiets behind them before turning to the cupboard under the island.


	10. Chapter 10

It’s been quiet on the bridge for nearly an hour now, and Shiro wonders if there’s something else he should have said, if he should have made his position clear more gently. It doesn’t make any sense to delay their arrival at the Blade headquarters, of course, but if he were in her position -- he’d want to know, he realizes. Of course he’d want to know. That doesn’t mean they can afford the delay or the distraction, but if there’s a way to reassure her they can come back, sometime, when things are less pressing.

“Allura,” he starts, turning to where she’s taken Coran’s place at the helm, but she raises a hand to cut him off. 

“I’ve set a course for Entuk, so we should be alright leaving it on auto-pilot for a while,” she says, finishing a quick set of keystrokes before she backs up from Coran’s station. Her tone is brisk and businesslike, though he guesses that’s the result of training in diplomacy her entire life so far rather than a reflection of her actual level of calm. “I suppose when we get there we’ll arrange everything to take us the rest of the way to Ulaz’s coordinates.” The way she says Ulaz’s name sounds wary, at least to Shiro, and he’s pretty sure she could input the entire course right now if she really wanted to. He’s reminded again how little she seems willing to trust Ulaz -- by extension, to trust him. He sighs. 

“Alright,” he says, trying not to let defeat bleed into his voice. “I’ll leave that to you and Coran, then.” She nods, but doesn’t say anything more, and the bridge slips back into silence apart from the quiet intermittent beeps of the navigation system.

\--

The lab, unlike the bridge, is humming with activity, though none of it verbal. When Keith walks in, he sees Pidge absolutely in her element. She’s surrounded by the tiny containers she brought in from the kitchen, and her eyes are bright with interest. The containers are arrayed around her in a semi-circle, and she’s using a bunch of tiny spoons of some kind to scoop bits of them into equally tiny glass capsules. Behind her are several machines on another table, all blinking with various lights and buzzing, apparently warming up. To Keith, they mostly look like variations on a microwave, though he’s not about to tell Pidge that. 

“Making progress?” he asks lightly, putting the stack of matching containers he’s carrying onto the desk between them. He’s carefully labeled each one with the button combination that produces it from the querlay, and under that the output the screen showed him, which he assumes must be the name of whatever grain or pudding-type thing he’s collected there. Pidge raises her eyebrows seeing all the Altean markings in his small precise script. 

“Well, I’ll be making more now! Where did all these come from?” Only Pidge, Keith thinks, could be this excited about a bunch of weird unidentified bits of stuff. He explains as best he can, repeating the pieces of Coran’s technobabble he remembers and watching her face as subtly as possible to make sure he’s making some sense. When he finishes, she nods, eyebrows knit together. 

“So, we know these are staple ingredients for Alteans, and I’m sure I can even figure out the common names for what they are given how you’ve labeled them -- thanks for that, by the way.” She looks up at him at this. 

“No problem.” 

“-- but the main thing we need to figure out, really, is if we can eat them and not die.” 

“That does seem to be the goal, yeah.” She frowns for a second before nodding firmly. 

“Okay, let’s get to work.” 

Once Pidge walks Keith through her procedure for collecting the samples, the lab slips into a routine, the hum of the machines, the click of opening and closing the containers, and the flipping of pages as Pidge looks up Altean words the only sounds. 

\--

The kitchen is the quietest it’s been since they first arrived. Hunk’s various dough mixtures line the edges of the counter in the pantry, and he and Coran have settled onto a couple of stools at the opposite end of the main kitchen island from where Lance continues to sleep. 

“Ira was the one who taught me most of what I know about baking, really,” Coran is saying over a mug of what Hunk has figured out is some kind of Altean tea. “He was technically my mum’s second cousin, but I don’t know that we ever got that technical about it. Unlike baking, which of course, he was very technical about -- Ira could talk about fat-flour-liquid ratios for vargas at a time! Fascinating man.” Hunk nods over his own mug, which is full of just hot water. He’s not sure Altean tea would agree with his digestive system, and if he’s going to take the risk of alien food poisoning again, it’ll at least be for something more exciting than tea. 

“He sounds a lot like my mom,” he says. “‘She always says -- said -- says that the mark of a good baker is that they could make a pound cake in a kitchen on the other side of the world with nothing labeled in English, and that she absolutely could, even without a scale or balance or anything.” 

“Seems like you take after her,” says Coran. 

“Guess so.” He says. “Well, I hope so anyway -- she’s a great person to take after, you know?” He’s a bit surprised, but not terribly, that his eyes are tearing up. Missing his family is never exactly a difficult emotion to achieve. “Wow, it must be getting late if it’s time for this level of homesickness, huh?” 

“Ah, well,” Coran says, standing up and stretching. “Perhaps it’s time to let sleep take the lead, eh? Keep us from slipping too far into the world of nostalgia.” 

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” 

\--

On Entuk, the outpost is less than quiet, but not as loud as might be expected during more active parts of the day. There’s the usual hum of early morning, as the market sector is starting to fill with vendors. Councilor Yeskia is the only member to have arrived in the chambers yet, although she figures the others will get there soon enough. They’ve got several issues on their shoulders these days, and without clear solutions to any of them she hasn’t been sleeping much. 

The marketplace sounds from outside the chambers might be more reassuring if she weren’t so aware of the absence of some of the usual ones -- no rumbling of the eatery querlays or screams of youngsters out for early sports practice. There will still be the gatherings, of course, but this sun cycle is a strange one, that much she has to admit. 

Yeskia takes a deep breath and stands up from her spot at the councilors’ table -- she can’t sit for the last few moments before the others arrive. She needs to think. 


	11. Chapter 11

The castle is nearly still when Hunk gets out of bed in the wee hours of the next morning. It’s a full four hours or so -- three vargas and something, he tells himself -- before the others would normally be up and about, except maybe Shiro. But, he thinks, yawning and pulling on some slippers before he leaves his quarters, even Shiro probably isn’t up quite this early. He wouldn’t be either, but he has no idea how long space yeast takes to settle in, and it seems better to check on things more often than less. 

When he gets to the kitchen, at first nothing seems amiss. The staple querlay is still humming away -- they didn’t shut it back down fully last night, he notes -- and apart from the mugs he and Coran left on the counter, it’s neat and clean. The pantry itself is another story. At first, he’s not sure what he’s looking at. The surface of the island is lost under layers of blue and purple and gray...something. It looks goopy, but when he pokes it with an experimental finger, it’s almost solid, and doesn’t leave a trace of itself on his skin. Hunk frowns, studying it for a moment, until he thinks to follow the flow of it back around the island, down across the floor, up to the back counter, and to the row of bowls he left there last night.

It looks like the -- whatever it is, he’ll figure that out later -- must have come from the starters he threw together. Two of them have burst through the sheets of covering he and Keith put over the bowls, and where they’ve merged they’ve formed this…

“-- lung rot?” Hunk nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of the voice from behind him, whirling around faster than he thought was possible. 

“What the _quiznak_ , Allura? What are you doing sneaking up on a guy like that?” His heart is hammering, and he takes a breath to recover, taking in her slumped shoulders and tiny sheepish smile. “Sorry, I didn’t realize anyone else would be up and about just after third varga.” She sounds exhausted, and Hunk realizes with a rush that she may well not have slept at all. 

“It’s okay,” he says quickly, and it is, really. He can feel his heart rate already going back to normal, and he can’t say he blames her for having a bit of insomnia, given the stress of everything they’ve been dealing with lately -- the Blade of Marmora just another concern to add to the list, really. “I’m sorry -- didn’t mean to snap at you...I’ve just been trying to figure out what the deal is with whatever different space yeast we can find -- gotta keep the brain occupied with everything going on, figure out how best to get some comfort food going -- and I thought I was the only one awake, and then you just -- Anyway, you get it.” He’s rambling, he realizes; it’s too early for filters. 

“I do get it,” she says, her smile more genuine now. “Thank you.” 

“For what?” 

“For forgiving me, I suppose,” she says. “And for this welcome distraction.” She gestures broadly at the weird mess he’s apparently made of their formerly pristine pantry. Hunk grimaces. 

“You said -- sorry, did you call this stuff _lung rot?_ ” He must have heard wrong, he thinks, because the alternative is too gross to think about. Not to mention he’s not sure how he would have made something like that outside of a body -- oh, but now he’s thinking about it _inside_ a body, and that he definitely doesn’t need either. 

“Yes,” says Allura, frowning now, and Hunk tries to lock onto her words instead of letting his mind continue down that particularly unpleasant rabbit hole. “It used to grow out in the fields during the floods back -- back home.” She goes quiet, and Hunk gets the feeling that any value this had as a distraction is somehow canceled out. Although, it’s certainly distracting _him_ now; any thought of potential bread recipes with alien ingredients can’t make it through the visceral horror he’s still feeling thinking about what this stuff might do to a pair of lungs. He tries to think of how to phrase his next question to poke as little as possible at what’s clearly still a tender wound for Allura. Your whole home planet gone is kind of a big deal, he thinks, even if it had things like lung rot. “Is it, uh...dangerous?” he asks finally. He has to know how to handle it, even if it does mean pushing Allura into painful memory territory. It would kind of stress folks out, he’s pretty sure, if he accidentally made some kind of toxic substance in the kitchen of all places and they had a repeat of the mass food poisoning incident on top of everything else going on. And he can’t imagine anything called ‘lung rot’ -- even in Altean -- could be good. 

“I mean, it’s not usually desirable,” Allura says, though she sounds less sure of herself. “The growers used to clear it before planting, at least. I think you can handle it without any, ah...adverse effects, though.” 

“You can handle it, you mean,” says Hunk pointedly. “I’m not sure that we can count on humans and Alteans having the same reaction.” Allura’s eyes widen at this. 

“Right, I hadn’t thought of that,” she says, then looks down, shame creeping into her features. “Just like I didn’t think of it with the roast shellhorn.” 

“Eh, it happens! Can’t blame yourself and all that.” Hunk shrugs, trying to catch her eye with an encouraging look. She hasn’t stopped studying the floor, though. “Technically, I already touched it, anyway,” he continues, and looks down at the finger he used to prod at the mysterious substance earlier. It looks the same as all the others, as far as he can tell. “And it doesn’t seem to have done anything to me for now.” 

“Well, that’s good,” she says, finally looking up. Her brows knit into a frown before she goes on. “But you’re right that you probably shouldn’t risk it any more, just in case.” Any more of her plan is interrupted by an announcement from the roomwide comms, which, Hunk realizes, are clearly as present in the pantry as they are throughout the rest of the ship. 

“Ah, attention, folks! Paladins, Allura, miscellaneous space critters I didn’t know we had on board until recently,” Coran’s voice is pitched like a game show announcer over the speakers, and Hunk suspects he hasn’t slept either. “Just wanted to let you all know that we are on the approach to Entuk, and if you’d like to see it fly by as we get near, well, now’s the time to make your way to the bridge. If you, like me, would rather be in a state of slumber right now, by all means, be my guest! That goes doubly for the space critters, none of whom I need startling me at this early hour.” 

“Well, the lung rot can wait; it’s not going to do anything on its own, I don’t think,” says Allura, who seems to have perked up with a bit of hope at Coran’s announcement. Hunk is not at all sure that they can trust it not to do anything more than it already has, but he’d rather not push her back into the quiet sad place she seemed to be in when she first got here, so he shrugs. 

“To the bridge, then?” 


	12. Chapter 12

There may be a plague on, or -- as Jenis puts it -- some sort of bug going around, but that doesn’t mean Edessa isn’t still expected to put in her proper appearance at the marketplace. After all, what will the others do without a little comfort food in these trying times? She tells herself this, anyway, as she unloads dozens of small tarts onto the tray in front of her in neat rows of browned triangles. 

Entuk’s market is emptier than it would have been a few moons ago, but there’s plenty of noise -- the low persistent hum of the filtration systems running at high capacity, the whistle of messenger capsules entering and leaving the pneumatic tubes along the communications wall, the constant murmur of voices from the comms operators -- spending as much effort chatting amongst themselves as they are rerouting and recording messages. As it should be, Edessa thinks. 

From her position midway down the food commerce section, Edessa can also hear Jenis talking to their glodworms in the next aisle over, though she’s not sure their goal is to be heard. To be fair, others probably couldn’t pick Jenis’s voice out of the hubbub, where Edessa has been practiced at exactly that for years. It sounds as if the worms have been short on glisten production the past few days, which seems to her a shame. Glodworm glisten is in high demand in third season, usually, when the youngsters have their end-of-year gatherings, and any of them with a few credits left from this moon’s allowance will want to get some. Jenis doesn’t need the credits, of course. They end up redistributing at least a thousand credits every new moon cycle as it is, though Edessa supposes they would like to keep having the stockpile to redistribute -- not earning credit for themself, as it were, but for the others. 

Edessa sighs as she puts the last of her tarts out onto the trays, tucking the container she brought them over in under the counter of her stall. She takes a seat on the chair she’s set up behind it, cushioned these days, since her joints aren’t getting any younger. There’s not much foot traffic this early, but given the quickly-approaching gatherings, there should be youngsters around soon as well as older folks out for breakfast and a chat. Normally, she loves chatting as much as the next person, but given that recent chats always seem to turn to the topic of disease, they’ve become much less enjoyable the past couple moons. Still, the medical team seems to have a handle on things -- no one’s died, few people are even sharing enough secretions to cause the disease to spread. It seems to her that things may well blow over soon, and they’ll be back to chats about the new pods and dreams of perfecting transport back to Altea. 

“Excuse me, Edessa?” The voice is impossibly small, and apparently so is the speaker. Edessa has to crane her neck as far as she can over the top of her counter to see them: a tiny boy, couldn’t be more than a couple sun cycles out of nursery, looking up at her with wide dark eyes. 

“Yes, that’s me,” she says, standing up -- better to be on her feet than get a crick in her neck that won’t go away for hours. “What do you need, child?” 

“I’d like some tarts,” says the boy. He frowns. “I don’t have any credits, though.” 

“Well, of course not,” says Edessa mildly, raising her eyebrows. “You’re not near allowance age, my dear...where are your parents?” 

“They’re sick,” says the boy, shrugging his tiny shoulders. “All of them.” 

“And you haven’t got a carer assigned?” she asks, somewhat more alarmed than she was a moment ago. “What’s your name, child?” 

“I...Ren -- Renturin, and they only got sick this morning.” 

Edessa looks around her at the marketplace, nearly deserted apart from a few other stall owners and the communications operators, and makes a split-second decision. 

“Take me to them,” she says, swiftly pulling the curtain across the front of her booth. She grabs five or six tarts, sweeping them into a small bag, and comes around to stand by the child. “Go on, then.” 

It’s strange, she thinks as the boy leads her across the market sector, that the medical team hasn’t addressed this yet. The council has been directing them to begin activity as early as possible in the mornings lately, as far as she knows. Ren -- or maybe he prefers Renturin; she’s not sure if he gave the one-syllable version because he wanted to or if he’s just struggling with words, as she thinks anyone would be with all parents taken suddenly out of commission -- seems to know very well where he’s going, at least. They’re through the commerce sections for food, basic apparel, and home decor before she thinks to ask him where his parents even are. The end of the dome that houses most residences is in nearly the opposite direction, and the only things she knows are on this end are the council chambers, the sports fields, and -- she stops walking as she realizes they’re nearly in front of the medical sector. 

“Renturin,” she says seriously. He seems to notice with her voice that she’s no longer on pace with him and whirls around, raising his eyebrows at her. “I thought your parents weren’t taken to medical yet.” 

“Not all of them are here,” he says with a shrug. “Mama’s at work, I think, but we live here, and Papa and Sasha were still in bed when I left.” 

“You live…” They’re medical team, she realizes in a rush. They must be. And if they’re medical team, and yet his mother is at work somewhere else… “You’re Councilor Yeskia’s son.” There are only so many people at the outpost, and the boy’s wrinkled nose is as much an answer as she needs to confirm his identity. “Mama doesn’t really want people to know that,” he says. “But I guess you’re not people, you’re just...person.” 

“Quite right,” Edessa says slowly. Best to keep the boy calm, considering what he’s doubtless been through. She can’t imagine what iteration of the disease that’s been popping up might affect three trained medical personnel so acutely that their child was left to wander into the marketplace alone. He’ll likely need support in all of this. “I am a person, and I’d like to help.” Renturin nods solemnly up at her, dark eyes wide. He holds out a hand toward Edessa. 

“I’d like a tart, please,” he says quietly. She stifles a laugh, turning it into a single sharp breath, and pulls one out of the small sack she’s holding, handing it to him. His face breaks into a tiny sliver of a smile and he takes a bite, humming appreciatively. Edessa smiles quietly, pulling out a tart for herself and devouring it in three bites -- apparently a bit of a mystery makes her hungry. Good to know, for the future. 

“Wow, Edessa, you eat fast.” He sounds if anything awestruck, though she’s not sure why such a simple act should inspire awe. 

“Got to,” she says, winking. “When you’re busy feeding other people, there’s not much time to be feeding yourself.” The boy nods at her, frowning, before taking another bite of his own tart. His face smooths out as he finishes it, no doubt savoring the juniberry filling, still warm from the booth’s heat retention setup. He takes a deep breath when the tart is gone and looks back up at her, seemingly a bit more fortified now. 

“Right, okay,” he says. “We can go see them now.” 

“Lead the way,” Edessa says, keeping her face calm and open despite her creeping sense of apprehension. As she follows Renturin through the door of the medical officers’ quarters, she takes a deep breath, steeling herself against what she might find there. 


	13. Chapter 13

Shiro is the only other paladin who’s made it to the bridge, Allura sees, as she strides through the entrance just in time with its sliding open. Hunk, a few steps behind, follows at what is probably a far more reasonable pace for this early in the morning. It’s nearing fourth varga, although she doubts that will mean the same thing to the planet they’re approaching. While anyone left there might keep time to the standard, they’ll certainly live their days by the solar patterns of the star the planet orbits, a medium-sized white joggert, which means it could be any part of the light cycle right now, for all she knows. But for the castle’s inhabitants, this is earlier than any of them are usually up and about -- well, Allura’s not sure about Shiro, and Keith has been known to have bouts of insomnia, and Coran as well, and -- it’s earlier than she is usually up and about, at any rate. 

“How close are we?” Allura asks as she makes her way to her station. It’s habit, even if she won’t need to be opening a wormhole any time soon. 

“It should be visible in a couple of dobashes,” Coran answers, turning to look at her from the helm. “Oh, Hunk! I’m surprised you’re up this early -- or did my dulcet tones tempt you with the promise of a planet-viewing experience to start your day?” 

“Nah, I was already up,” says Hunk, frowning slightly. “Anyway, what is this planet? Entuk, you said?” He looks from Allura to Shiro to Coran and back again. 

“It’s a defunct Altean outpost -- well, the location of a defunct Altean outpost,” Allura says, trying to keep her voice calm. “We’re using it to detour around an imperial fleet -- a potential imperial fleet.” She corrects herself when she hears a small noise of objection from Shiro and sees Coran lift a finger to start speaking himself. Technically, they have no guarantee there were Galra ships in that area of space, but that doesn’t seem like that important of a detail to keep focusing on. 

“Right, princess,” says Coran, lowering his finger before continuing. “Entuk used to be a communications relay hub, back before we perfected long-range signaling that was as reliable as it is today. Altea needed an intermediary to handle and forward messages that wouldn’t have otherwise made it to their intended destinations -- farther across the universe than we could manage in one go. We lost touch with the outpost there during the war, though. The technology advanced to the point where having a relay was nearly obsolete, and it seemed more dangerous to route messages there than otherwise -- if nothing else, to keep it safe from the Empire. If they didn’t know about it, at least the people who lived there would be left in peace.” 

He pauses for a few moments, apparently lost in thought. It’s long enough that Shiro looks over at Allura, eyebrows raised. She shrugs back at him -- she’s never known anything about Entuk before now, although she supposes she must have heard of it back when her father was alive. Most likely she never registered it as much of anything important, or at least nothing she needed to know. For the hundredth time since the destruction of her father’s A.I., Allura wishes desperately she could learn more from him, that she’d had more time for diplomacy training, that she knew more about the state of the Altean forces back during the war -- 

“We mostly managed that,” Coran is saying now, having seemingly brought his thoughts back to their previous track. “At least, if the fact we don’t have it flagged as imperial territory is any indication. Of course, that means anyone left on Entuk has been alone and without contact with Altea for ten thousand years. The likelihood that any of them have survived with no further resources, on a planet outpost that wasn’t built to last nearly that long is infinitesimally small --” Coran’s voice is cut off and anything else he might say drowned out by a sudden crush of noise. Allura feels herself jump and gives a little yelp before processing it’s the castle alarms going full tilt. She shakes her head as her ears adjust to the cacophony of noise and looks around at the others. 

“What’s that?” she asks quickly. “What’s set off the alarm?” Hunk shrugs broadly, eyes wide as saucers. Shiro is still looking to Coran, his frown set even deeper than before. Coran, for his part, has whirled back around to the helm, frantically pressing controls until he’s brought the alert up on screen. 

“It’s a distress signal,” he says, shouting to be heard over the continued blaring of the alarm. “And it appears it’s from the outpost!” Allura breathes in sharply, and lets out a quiet “oh,” unheard over the din. 

\--

Yeskia stares at the drinking vessel in front of her, considering her options. Her hands are shaking, as they have been for the past half varga. That’s not a good sign, she doesn’t think. If Zoric and Lenida are right -- and they are, she’s sure -- that’s an early symptom, followed by a tightness in the throat, a lowered capacity for breath. Of course, they’ve had cases clear up from there with proper treatment, and she’s not worried so much for herself, but if Lenida or Zoric have caught it...then the rest of the medical team will handle it, she tells herself. They’re more than capable, even if they can only treat symptoms. Even if it has become maddeningly clear to her that there was a way to handle this back when they lived on Altea -- well, not when they lived on Altea, but when their predecessors -- she’s getting off-track. She’s getting off-track, and the other councilors who’ve joined her seem to have moved on from the debate they’ve been having since they arrived about whether the market sector needs to be closed, or somehow better-regulated. They're talking about trying to communicate their needs off-planet, now. Strange that they haven’t yet thought to consult her on any of this, when she’s easily best positioned to communicate with medical now that Councilor Hilvra has taken ill. Ever since she took leave to spend more time with Ren -- but no matter. 

“I think we ought to try it,” she says loudly, cutting off Councilor Elian mid-sentence. He looks at her, brows raised high in surprise. 

“I -- I’m sorry?” he asks, in the tone of someone not used to being interrupted quite so ungraciously. Councilor Lisanne, with whom he’s been arguing, grins at Yeskia from behind Elian’s back. 

“Lisanne is right when they say it’s been long enough. We haven’t heard anything about a Galra presence in the area for dozens of decophoebs -- years -- both measures, it doesn’t matter. The point is, the Empire isn’t here. And whether they continue to thrive in other areas of the galaxy or not is no matter. Our communications relays are finely-tuned -- we can send a signal to a particular radius with nearly no margin for error. We can be sure there aren’t any Galra ships in the area, because if there were, we would know -- the grid would have alerted us, and so there’s no danger in casting a net, so to speak --” 

“Yeskia, surely you don’t think sending a signal indiscriminately --” 

“--I didn’t say indiscriminately, Elian.” She waves one of her hands dismissively, controlling the shaking as best she can. “I said to a particular radius. We need any help we can get at this point. Hilvra is not on the same trajectory as other patients have been, and Lenida has been tracking outcomes over the past several moons. Yes, we have many folks recovered, but not everyone has made it out of medical. I’d rather we not wait until our first true casualty to start looking for help.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying!” Lisanne sounds equal parts exasperated and relieved, and Yeskia makes a mental note to apologize to them later for not listening as attentively as she should have.

“I…” Elian swallows before he continues. “Well, we can’t make any decision on it until we’ve consulted with Hilvra and Morn -- without a full council vote --”

“How are you planning on getting a full council vote with Hilvra in medical and Morn on an expedition, Elian? We can’t afford to put this off any longer!” Lisanne slams their hands on the table in front of them, making Yeskia’s drinking vessel rattle. She’s suddenly reminded that in a former life, Lisanne worked out-of-dome expeditions themself. “We are lucky that no one has died yet, but make no mistake -- that’s definitely a possibility. We can’t just bet on, what? A lab cure that may not be developed for moons and moons? Even with anything that turns up in the expeditions --” The rest of Lisanne’s speech is drowned out by a deep wail that seems to come from the bowels of the council chambers itself. All three of the councilors turn to the main door of the chambers as it slams open, and they all start talking at once. 

“What sector --” 

“Is it the off-world --” 

“Widened alert or --” 

The page in the doorway holds up a hand, panting. 

“Outpost citizen in the medical sector,” she says. “And yes, it’s transmitting off-world.” 


	14. Chapter 14

Edessa isn't sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't this. The quarters they enter aren't nearly as...sterile as she would predict from a couple of medics and their councilor wife. Renturin leads her into a front room set with somewhat mismatched comfortable-looking furniture -- with the small heat stove in the corner, it looks downright cozy. 

"You can sit down," the boy says, gesturing an arm in a way that encompasses the whole room and makes it clear she's free to choose her seat. Edessa nods and makes her way to a round-backed chair with wide armrests, framed out of some kind of strong dried brown plant matter, but cushioned with blue-green pillows. It's near the heat stove, and when she lowers herself into it, she's pleased to find the cushions are just firm enough to be comfortable with her back the way it is.

“Now, your papa and sasha --” Edessa begins, but she cuts herself off at a clatter from further inside. 

“Ren?” a voice calls warmly. “Is that you?” 

“Yes, Papa,” the boy calls back. “Wait here. You can’t -- well, anyway, just wait,” he adds to Edessa, and disappears down the hallway further into the house. Edessa frowns, looking around the room and considering her options. She could stay here, sitting in what is admittedly a highly comfortable chair. She could leave -- that doesn’t seem likely, there’s much too much interesting going on. Besides, Renturin -- maybe he did prefer Ren -- came to find her on purpose, even if he was a bit shaken at the time. She could follow, which does admittedly seem like the most appealing option, even if she’s not usually one to overstep -- there’s a child involved, and he had said his parents were sick. 

She’s saved from having to follow through on such an endeavor by Ren’s return. He’s picked up a face covering somewhere, which stretches across the bridge of his nose, covering the sickles on his cheeks and securing around the back of his head. It looks almost like a bandage, and the curious nature of its appearance causes Edessa to take a moment to realize he’s holding another similar covering out to her. 

“Put this on, please,” he says. “It’s...you need it. Papa says.” 

“Alright,” Edessa says slowly, taking the covering from him and holding it across her own sickles. She frowns as she tries to figure out the straps, and Ren flaps a hand at her to get her to kneel so he can reach to secure it around her face. She thinks about asking him what it’s for, but it seems to her the child’s been through enough this morning already, and presumably if she gets to see some adults -- she wishes she could remember the medical attendings’ names -- they’ll be in a better position to explain. Leading her down the hallway, Ren runs one hand along the wall beside him, which Edessa notices is made of some kind of light brown paneling, rather than the usual smooth white metal. The opposite wall is mostly windows, letting in plenty of morning sunlight filtered through the dome. They pass a number of doors, where Ren seemingly automatically hops his hand off the wall and back on again. All the doors are shut, with command panels next to them just like the ones she’s seen in her own stays in the medical sector. No labels, but then, they wouldn’t need any in a home, she supposes. 

“Sasha’s asleep, but Papa’s up, or at least awake. I told him you’re here, and he said to bring you back and he’ll explain better -- inform you about precautions.” Ren stops for a moment and looks back up at her. “I think he means about the face things.” 

“Alright,” says Edessa, nodding. She’s still holding the small bag of tarts, and she wishes she’d thought to bring more, since their dwindling supply won’t get them too far if they need to be nursing two sick adults all day. Still, if at least one of them is conscious, that’s a good sign. The hallway is long, but the door at the end is open, the panel glowing with a soft white light, unlike the six or so they passed -- Edessa had lost count when Ren started talking. 

As they approach the open door, she starts to hear the low hum of machinery over the rest of the background sounds of the house, and Ren leads her into a neat modest bedroom. The bed in the center is made of the same kind of plant fiber as the frame of her chair in the front room, with one figure curled up under its ocean of blankets. This in itself immediately strikes Edessa as odd -- it’s quite warm in the house -- but she’s distracted by the other figure in the room, who must be Ren’s father. He’s tall by Entuk standards, wearing one of the same face strip coverings that Ren brought her, and would cut an imposing figure if not for the warmth in his eyes and the smile on his face. 

“Edessa, a delight to see you, if anything especially given the circumstances,” he says, and Edessa keeps from slapping her own forehead to try to remember his name, but it’s a close thing. 

“Likewise, medic,” she says, hating it as soon as it’s out of her mouth. There are only so many people at the outpost, and one of their head medical officers shouldn’t be a difficult pull. 

“Zoric,” he says, tone still impossibly kind. “I wouldn’t expect you to know -- Lenida’s usually the one who gets all the press, so to speak. Speaking of which, she’s, well --” He stops and gestures toward the bed, where the figure under the covers stirs and rolls over back into the pile of pillows. “She’s not doing as well as the rest of us, I’m afraid.” Zoric doesn’t look like he’s doing so well, either, if the bags under his eyes or the shaking in his hands are any indication, and Edessa is pretty sure if it weren’t for Ren’s return and not wanting to frighten the boy, he wouldn’t have made the effort to get out of bed. 

“You should probably lie down also,” Edessa says firmly. “Or at least sit -- you can talk as well from sitting, Zoric.” She may have only met him on a few occasions, but Edessa has dozens of sun cycles of experience more than the good medic, and that’s enough to lend her some authority in this situation, she hopes. 

“You’re --” Zoric cuts off to cough into one white-sleeved elbow, grimacing. He nods, and moves to an armchair in the corner by the headboard of the bed, nearly identical to the one she sat in in the front room. The furniture in here is far better coordinated than it is out there, Edessa notices. It’s not until Ren appears by Zoric’s side with a small silver pouch and a straw that Edessa even notices he left the room, but Zoric takes the pouch gratefully and pierces it with the straw with trembling fingers, taking a long drink before speaking again. “I don’t think we imagined we would all come down with it at the same time,” he says. “What do you know about this sickness, Edessa?” 

“I know it started a few moons ago,” she says slowly. “I know a number of people have recovered from it, and there have been no deaths. I know transmission seems to be somewhat limited, though we haven’t quite figured out how yet.” She takes a deep breath. “And I know Councilor Hilvra took ill a few days ago.” 

“All accurate, though it’s also true we’ve been learning more with every new case that arises,” Zoric says. “Unfortunately, medical has had a time trying to get any solid data on how to treat it apart from treating symptoms...like you said, that usually works, but in Councilor Hilvra’s case, we haven’t been seeing much of an improvement. Lenida and I have been staying with her as much as possible, running any tests we can think of and trying to treat her symptoms. Unfortunately, that seems to have come around and bitten us in the ass.” He smiles ruefully at her. 

“Papa, language,” Ren says, so sternly it takes Edessa until Zoric laughs to realize he was joking. 

“Anyway, the thing that’s truly maddening -- and I tell you this in confidence, Edessa -- is that Lenida found some texts last week, ones that seem to indicate --” He’s cut off by a series of demanding beeps, and he frowns down at his wrist communicator. “Oh -- I need to take this,” he says, putting his hands on the arms of the chair to go to rise. 

“No, stay here,” Edessa says. “I’ll take Ren out, if you need us to leave.” 

“Oh, it’s not that," he says. "I need my -- yes, thank you, Ren.” The boy moves quickly and nearly-silently, Edessa thinks. He’d make a good scout. In any case, he’s brought Zoric a small tablet and stylus, which the medic balances on his lap as he brings his wrist communicator up to his face and presses the release. A small hologram appears in front of him, and Edessa feels a jolt of surprise as she recognizes it as Councilor Hilvra. A Councilor Hilvra that looks more tired and shaky than she’s ever seen, but Councilor Hilvra nonetheless. 

“Zoric,” the councilor says hurriedly, and Edessa is partly relieved to hear she still sounds like Hilvra, even if her appearance is more disheveled than she would ever appear in public. “It’s time. It must be.” Zoric, who had apparently been preparing to take notes, drops his stylus in surprise. 

“Are you sure, Councilor?” he asks, eyebrows lowering as his kind face transforms into a frown. “We haven’t exhausted --” 

“We have,” the tiny hologram interrupts. “We lost Lim this morning. It’s all over the sector. I hope Yeskia and the others have heard, because --”

“-- we can’t waste any time. I’ll handle things with the Councilors,” Zoric says. “You rest.” He hits a button on his communicator to cut off the transmission and turns to his son. “Ren, I need you to go to the lab; there’s a box in the corner --” 

“-- with the alarms, I know. But which one --” 

“-- take the key from Sasha’s hook, and mine, here --” He passes the boy a small silver key. “And take Edessa. You need to activate the off-world signal. We’re not getting through this alone.” 


	15. Chapter 15

The others arrive on the bridge one at a time, and after he gets halfway through an explanation for Keith and has to start over for Pidge, Shiro gives up on figuring anything out until they're all there. Lance stumbles through the sliding door a few minutes after Coran has quieted the distress signal to a faint beeping, and it’s now a small flashing beacon on the viewscreen guiding them on their approach.

“It’s definitely coming from the outpost according to our records of its coordinates on the surface -- which is good, since I can’t get confirmation that the atmosphere of this planet is breathable anywhere else, and we don’t have a whole lot of spare breathing apparatuses that have been tested in, oh, the last millennium,” says Coran, typing rapidly on the helm’s interface. 

“It seems like we shouldn’t overwhelm them,” says Allura. “Perhaps we send one lion down as an envoy to start?” Her voice is calm, but her eyes are shining in a way that tells Shiro she definitely hasn’t given up on the possibility of finding more Alteans here. He frowns, but before he can say anything, Lance of all people cuts in -- Shiro wasn’t sure he was even fully conscious. 

“We should bring Blue! She’s clearly best equipped for this sort of thing.” 

“How do you figure?” Keith’s testy this morning, it seems. 

“I _figure_ \--” Lance puts air quotes around the word, his voice full of disdain “-- she’s quick, she’s got that sonic scanner thingy that’ll let us figure out what the deal is with this whole outpost thing, and oh right, she’s calm and collected, and not just gonna throw fire at everyone.” 

“Nah, but if you’re piloting, sure seems like she might just flip through the air and start freezing things left and right.” 

“Okay,” says Shiro, holding a hand out at each of them to stop. “Everyone’s a little tired; you’ve all been up a bit late with all these kitchen experiments, and I get that, but let’s just take a second and think about this.” He sees Hunk and -- strangely -- Allura blanch visibly at “kitchen experiments,” which seems like it doesn’t bode well, but they can come back to that later. Shiro lowers his hands when it’s clear neither Keith nor Lance is going to continue this particular argument. “We don’t have long, but we can at least consider our options.” 

“The blue lion does seem like a good choice,” says Coran, turning from the helm. “Entuk is a water-rich environment, so in some ways, that would put her and her pilot in their element.” He nods at Lance, who grins. 

“And I can go with him,” says Allura, stepping down from her station to join the rest of them arrayed loosely around the viewscreen. “Between the blue lion and me, Lance will be perfectly manageable.” 

“Hey --” Lance starts, but they don’t have time to go through whatever reassurance Lance needs, as they seem to be rapidly approaching entering orbit above the planet’s surface. 

“Don’t,” Shiro says, raising his hand again. Lance frowns at it, but keeps his mouth shut. “We’ll send the blue lion with Lance and Allura to make contact with whoever’s sending that signal and get the lay of the land. That way we’ve got a pilot and a diplomat. Pidge and I’ll go down in the green lion, too -- we’ll use the cloaking ability Pidge installed so we can tag along as backup without alerting anyone.” He’s not entirely sure how Allura will handle things if there _are_ somehow living breathing Alteans here -- he’s not going to pretend she hasn’t shown herself a little reckless sometimes -- but at least she’s had some training on how to interact with new groups and cultures. And if nothing else, he’ll be in a position to intervene if necessary. 

“What about the rest of us?” Hunk asks.

“Coran will run backup support, obviously -- you and Keith stand by in case we need the red or yellow lions once we know the specifics. Clear?” He waits for confirmation nods from the rest of the paladins before turning to Coran. “What else should we know about how things might be down there?” 

\--

It might not be necessary to flip his lion head over tail on the way down to the planet’s surface, but if there’s a pilot who would skip that opportunity, it sure isn’t Lance. Allura being in the cockpit with him does keep him from whooping aloud as he careens toward the distress signal, but just barely. 

“Is this how you always fly?” Allura asks primly as he swoops toward the beacon widely enough that he’s nearly going in a spiral. “I hadn’t really noticed before now.” Lance blanches at her overly mild tone and bites the corner of his lip as he evens out their flightpath to head toward the signal a bit more directly. He clears his throat before answering her.

“Oh, just testing things out, making sure she’s doing okay, you know -- been a minute since I flew her, what with the mall trip and whatnot.” Lance tries to keep his tone casual, and he does a pretty good job of it, he thinks. 

“Do you do this every time it’s, uh, been a minute?” Allura asks, still in what seems to Lance to be too formal of a tone. 

“I mean, yeah -- want to put her through her paces, you know, like you would a horse.” There’s a rumbling feeling in the back of his head, and he grimaces. “Um, I mean, not exactly like a horse, but you get the idea.” 

“So the lion’s a she --”

“Lance, Allura, quit chatting and look alive -- we’re getting close.” Lance jumps halfway out of his pilot’s chair; he forgot they were on open comms, and Shiro’s voice is a jolt he wasn’t expecting. 

“Is it...an island?” Pidge sounds confused, and she should be, Lance thinks as he sweeps his gaze across the planet below. The area they’re heading toward is suspiciously blue -- which would be fine, he thinks, if there were some kind of blue landmass there, but it really does just seem to be a vast stretch of ocean. He feels the beginnings of excitement bubbling up and can’t stop one of his legs from vibrating rapidly. 

“Hey, Coran, buddy, are we sure we’ve got the right coordinates here, or?” He knows that’s not exactly a proper question, but it’s all he’s got. 

“That’s definitely the location of the distress beacon,” comes the response. “It’s possible the outpost is hidden somehow, though we have no record of them having cloaking technology -- of course, it’s been ten thousand years, so who knows what mysteries they’ve developed since Altea was last in contact.” 

“Cool,” says Lance, and he grins. “Then we’re going in!” And this time he doesn’t bother suppressing the whoop that breaks free from his throat as he points Blue into a nosedive streaking straight for the water below. 


	16. Chapter 16

“Are we sure about this, Shiro?” Pidge says, seeing the blue lion break through the surface of the water ahead of them, its tail disappearing with a surprisingly small splash for such a large body. Shiro’s standing a bit ahead of her and to the side. She’s asked him three times if he wants to sit down, but he doesn’t seem interested, grabbing the little trapeze-like handle that hangs from the ceiling whenever she does any maneuvering that might otherwise throw him off-balance.

“We’re as sure as we’re gonna get, I think,” he says, shrugging. Pidge sighs. It’s not that she doesn’t think the green lion can handle water -- they’ve just never had to before, and she’s not sure what differences there will be between that and piloting in the air or on land. Not to mention she hasn’t tested the cloaking device in all environments -- which isn’t to say it shouldn’t work, just that she can’t be sure. She’d rather be sure. There’s a prickling sensation in the back of her brain, and though she can guess its source, she’s not sure if it’s meant to be comforting, encouraging, or cautioning -- or some combination of all three. 

“Alright, here goes nothing,” she mutters, and slides her acceleration bar forward, pushing the thrusters to full before she can think of any other objections.

Crashing through the surface of the water, Pidge wonders -- too late to do anything about it of course -- if it was even worth diverting power to the cloak, given the size of the splash she’s sure they just made. Anyone down below is certainly aware something is going on, but maybe they’ll attribute it to the first lion and not realize there might be a second. 

“Hopefully, no one was paying too close attention to the surface,” Shiro says, clearly thinking along the same lines. 

“Yeah.” Pidge winces, realigning her lion to follow the glow of Blue’s tail, a couple dozen meters below their current position. Piloting the green lion in the water feels a bit odd, sort of slow and awkward. They’re still moving -- and moving reasonably quickly and efficiently, she thinks -- but it’s going to take some getting used to. It would’ve been nice if whoever sent that distress beacon had had the decency to call from land, at least if they were going to try to bring them in before Pidge had some time to test out the lions in different environments. 

She supposes it’s not that absurd that there would be a distress signal from underwater, though. After all, Lance and Hunk had been to that whole underground society with the mermaids -- and oh, Pidge wishes she could have learned more about the science of their survival beyond what she’s gathered secondhand -- and it shouldn’t surprise them too much that a planet covered in this much water might have a society living under it also. Although it does strike her as a bit odd that there would be a potentially _Altean_ society living underwater -- but then again, if they’ve been in isolation since Allura and Coran went into the cryopods, who knows what direction they might have evolved in? Is ten thousand years long enough to evolve gills? Are they even sure that when the Alteans say ten thousand years they mean it literally? They never measure time in years otherwise, so -- 

“Hey, uh, guys?” Lance’s voice brings her back from that train of thought, and Pidge shakes her head slightly to clear it, noting that while the turquoise tail light is still visible, it’s gained a fair amount of distance, diving several lion-lengths ahead of them into the dark waters below. Blue really is better suited for this than any of the other lions, Pidge realizes, and wishes once again that she’d had more time up til now to do some further analysis of the lions and their particulars. 

“What’s up, Lance?” Shiro asks, frowning, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“I mean, you gotta see this, probably, but there’s -- uh. I don’t think there are any people down here.” 

“There might be,” Allura’s tone cuts in, sharp and almost pleading. “We don’t know for sure --” 

“Right, right -- I didn’t mean to say -- like, I just don’t think there are any, what with all the...” His slightly panicked voice trails off, probably gesturing somehow in a way that doesn’t translate across the comms. 

“Can you run a scan with the blue lion?” Shiro asks. “That should give us some idea of life signs, shouldn’t it, Pidge?” 

“Yes and no.” She frowns, reaching up to adjust glasses she realizes belatedly she’s not wearing. “It should give a pretty solid idea of the shape of whatever you’ve found --”

“I really don’t think it’s going to tell us much,” Lance says flatly. Pidge opens her mouth to continue what she’d been trying to explain about the difference between the sonic scanner and the BLIP tech they would need to properly track signs of life, but he barrels on, apparently unaware that there are other people in this conversation, and Pidge finds herself tuning him out completely. 

Lance should really run a sonic scan anyway, she thinks, no matter what there is down there, because it’ll help them navigate if they have to bring the lions down into any sort of structure, and give them an idea of whether they even can bring the lions in -- but listening mode clearly isn’t something that he’s gonna activate any time soon, so Pidge turns her attention to piloting her lion instead of trying to turn what’s clearly a monologue into a conversation. She turns off the cloak so the power can divert back to the main thrusters and accelerates toward Blue’s tail light ahead. 

The water she guides Green through as fast as she can is dark, the light from the planet’s sun not penetrating this deep into the ocean, but her headlights reveal a wide enough cone in front of her that she can make out the shape of the blue lion itself pretty easily, without really needing the aqua glow of its tail and pane lights. 

“Whoa,” Shiro breathes as they pull up alongside Blue, and Pidge has to agree. They’ve reached the ocean floor -- or at least, the depth that becomes a floor in this area of it -- and with the lights of both lions, it’s easy to see the stone buildings arrayed in front of them. They look old -- maybe not ten thousand years old, Pidge notes, depending on the composition of the ocean water -- but definitely old and definitely, well, ruined. There are large stones scattered around occasionally that have clearly fallen off of the original structures, though the enormous arch that seems to form the entrance to the city is intact. And while it’s an archaeological marvel, it seems like Lance is definitely right for once. But then…

“Who sent the signal?” she asks.


	17. Chapter 17

“We don’t know who sent the signal yet,” Lisanne says for probably the third time, but Elian is pacing the center of the council chambers, not anywhere near being a reasonable person for the moment -- if he ever is, Yeskia thinks.

“If this is some kind of prank, we’re going to have to reopen the prison chambers specifically for whoever pulled this stunt.” Elian sniffs in a way Yeskia can only interpret as haughty; she keeps from rolling her eyes, but only just. 

“Nil said it was in the medical sector,” she says tightly, trying not to give away too much. She and Elian have butt heads plenty of times over the cycles, but there’s no reason to openly antagonize him in the middle of a crisis. “I think it’s safe to assume this isn’t a prank -- someone will be back soon with more information, and we’ve sent for an engineering representative already.” 

“It’s never safe to assume,” Elian says, pausing in his pacing to fix her with a withering stare. Yeskia keeps her face pointedly neutral, though she can see Lisanne roll their eyes from their seat at the council table and lay their head in their hands. 

“Well, then it’s not safe to assume the worst, either,” Yeskia says simply, her tone light. Elian doesn’t respond to that, just returns to his pacing after giving one last sniff in her direction. Yeskia takes that as at least an admission that there’s no point in panicking or turning against their own people. In any case, she has a pretty good idea of who might have sent that signal, or at least why. She and Lenida have started showing symptoms just when Hilvra is worsening -- they’re lucky it hasn’t affected Zoric yet, but if things have gotten worse since she left the house this morning, she can’t imagine her spouses have felt there was any other option. And if anyone should be making the call in this case, of course it should be medical, though she’s not sure why they used the citizens’ array...unless…

“Zoric.” She says it aloud before she can stop herself, and even though her voice is quiet, it cuts through the silence of the council chambers perfectly clearly. 

“I’m sorry?” Elian says, stopping his pacing again, this time at the far end of the chamber. He projects his voice as if he needs to in order to be heard, loudly enough that it’s actually more difficult to parse his words. Yeskia clenches and unclenches trembling fingers in her lap; she can feel her face heating up. 

“I need to disclose something to both of you, councilors, though I feel I must emphasize that I haven’t put either of you at risk,” she says, looking vaguely toward Lisanne without making eye contact.

“At risk for the disease?” That’s Lisanne, who still sounds calm and collected. As she nods at them, Yeskia can see Elian approaching them in her peripheral vision, less calm, less collected. He stops several yards from the councilors’ table, mouth agape. 

“What do you mean you haven’t put either of us at risk? Why would that be a question?” His voice has lost its haughtiness, but gained a sharp edge that she doesn’t like any better, and his eyes are wide behind the tiny half-moon spectacles perched on his nose. 

Yeskia swallows before continuing. “Lenida tested positive for UAD -- the new sickness that’s been circulating. They’re calling it Unknown Altean Disease, but trying to use the initials as much as possible, because, well…” she trails off, lifting one slightly shaking hand to gesture in circles. 

“People won’t love that,” says Lisanne, nodding. 

“Not love it? They’ll hate it,” Elian adds, incredulous. “Can you imagine? Naming a disease after the very planet most would give anything to return to --” he cuts himself off, clapping a hand over his mouth. “-- I’m sorry,” he adds, speaking through his hand now. “You said Lenida tested positive?” “Yes, and I imagine the reason the citizens’ array is activated is likely because Zoric has tested positive as well.” She stops speaking, swallowing past a bit of a cough. She takes a drink from her vessel, and as she does, Lisanne continues seemingly for her. 

“...and he wouldn’t want to risk the two of them having to go activate the personnel one,” they say, frowning. “Speaking of which, we really ought to amend code on that, to allow personnel to have their respective alerts in their homes. It seems like it would have been best for us to know immediately that this alert came in a professional capacity -- assuming, of course, that you’re right, Yeskia, which I imagine you are, I mean -- you know your husband.” Yeskia nods, looking pointedly at Lisanne. 

“Updating the codes is something to handle when we’re not in the middle of a crisis, perhaps, though it’s a good point,” she says diplomatically. Lisanne looks a bit sheepish, but nods in turn. Elian sniffs, bringing the others’ attention back to see he’s apparently recovered from this bit of news, at least enough to have opinions again.

“Why didn’t you share this information immediately?” he asks, and this question at least Yeskia supposes is unavoidable. 

“Because we didn’t know enough,” she says. “They’re still working on their report, and so far we’ve had no fatalities -- it didn’t seem worth disclosing until things came to a point where we had something coherent to share and could use official channels.” 

“Or until we got into a crisis,” Lisanne says, and their jaw is set in frustration also, which Yeskia is pretty sure is unfortunately directed at her. 

“Yes, and we probably should have foreseen that, what with Hilvra’s decline.” She takes a deep breath. 

“Is there anything else you might need to disclose?” Lisanne asks, waving away the rest of what Yeskia intended to become a true apology. 

“Oh, it goes along with --” 

“-- Hold that thought, councilor,” says Elian, raising a single finger toward her as he looks at his now frantically beeping wrist communicator. “We should take this.” Yeskia darts a look at Lisanne, but they’re frowning toward Elian, their focus shifted completely, and in a split second Yeskia realizes why. Elian hasn’t once interrupted a council discussion to take a call -- Yeskia may have only been on council for a half-dozen sun cycles, but if there’s one thing Elian has, it’s a reputation for observing decorum. 

“Elian, good,” says a voice from the communicator as soon as he presses the release. Yeskia shakes her head to be sure of what she’s hearing, but that’s absolutely Zoric’s voice coming out of Elian’s wrist, and a moment later her husband’s holographic form appears, wearing a strange strip of fabric across his sickles. She frowns as Zoric continues. “Yeskia’s not picking up. Is she with you?” Elian shoots her a look of disapproval before answering.

“Yes, of course she’s here, medic.” Yeskia pulls up the sleeve of her jacket to find her communicator flashing bright red -- three missed calls, all from Zoric. She feels the heat come to her cheeks as she realizes that with the trembling in her hands she hasn’t felt the vibrations. Quietly, Yeskia takes off her wrist communicator and puts it on the council table in front of her, the better to monitor it. 

“Good, good.” Zoric sounds exhausted, and from what she can see of his holographic form from a couple meters away, he looks it as well. Yeskia feels a sharp pang in her heart -- this kind of open wilting isn’t like him, she thinks. It’s not like any of the three of them. “You all need to know that we had a fatality this morning -- the first one from UAD.” He pauses as all three councilors breathe in sharply in unison, then continues. “You also need to know that I’ve sent Renturin to set off the off-world signal -- he has both keys and it should have gone by now --” 

“-- it did,” Yeskia says, standing up and moving to stand by Elian. The communicator won’t pick her up as a hologram, but it will take her audio. “But it’s the civilian one, Zoric -- why didn’t you send him to the personnel --” 

“I did,” Zoric says slowly, and she sees his hologram face frown. “And he had Edessa with him -- from the market --” 

“Yeskia,” Lisanne’s voice cuts in, and Yeskia turns to see them nodding toward her communicator on the table, which is buzzing so frantically it’s skittering across the surface. She steps over to it quickly and picks it up, hitting the release without bothering to look at who the call is from. 

“She’s getting a call,” Elian says primly to Zoric’s tiny hologram, and Yeskia doesn’t see or hear how he responds to that, because in front of her is a hologram of a woman who’s such a fixture of the market that Yeskia feels instantly comforted, despite the frantic nature of this whole day so far. 

“Edessa,” she says warmly, holding the communicator as steady as she can so it will capture her hologram properly. “Are you with Ren? What --” 

“I’m sorry to cut you off, Councilor, but we’ve got some rather strange news -- Ren asked me to call Zoric, but he’s not answering, and we need to tell someone --” Her voice cuts off as Ren’s smaller one cuts in. 

“-- we couldn’t set off the real one, Mama, the one Papa wanted us to.” He sounds frantic, and Yeskia feels a tug at her heart, barely resisting the urge to race out of the building and across the dome to him immediately. “It wouldn’t open; I don’t know why -- so we did the other one, the citizen one? The one you said I should only touch in an emergency, but Papa seemed clear that this was an emergency, so --” 

“-- You did the right thing, Ren bird, you did,” she says as comfortingly as she can, trying to keep her face clear of her own distress, her free hand trembling more than it has been all morning to compensate. “Don’t worry -- we’re figuring out how to respond now, all right?” 

“All right, Mama,” he says, and there’s some relief in his voice, at least. She can see the hologram of Edessa move her arm to hold a bag out of frame, and she’s filled with a swell of affection for the baker for whatever comforts that bag might hold. When Ren speaks again, his mouth is clearly full. “Should we -- go -- home?” he asks, chewing. Edessa’s eyes crinkle with amusement and she turns back to speak to Yeskia again. 

“I’ll take him home if that’s where we should be,” she says. “Unless there are other missions we need to complete here?”

“We need to know why the personnel one didn’t work,” Elian says sharply from behind her. Yeskia turns to see his communicator is closed and away now. She frowns, hoping he at least relayed to Zoric what happened before he hung up. 

“Well, of course, Councilor.” Edessa says formally, and Yeskia nearly laughs at her not using Elian’s name when she’s easily twenty cycles his senior. Edessa’s on friendly terms with everyone, nearly. 

“Actually,” Yeskia says suddenly, because it’s true, Edessa _is_ on friendly terms with nearly everyone. “You can probably help us with that, or, well -- Jenis can. We sent a page to find them nearly -- well, a while ago -- and if they’re not both back yet --” 

“Jenis must be nowhere to be found,” says Edessa, smiling warmly at Yeskia now. “That I can help with. Give us a few ticks. Say bye to your mama for now, Ren.”

“Bye, Mama!”

“Bye, Ren bird,” she says softly as the communicator clicks off the call. 


	18. Chapter 18

It’s not that she doesn’t know Lance means well. Of course he does, but Allura can hardly process his words after he says it the first time-- _“I don’t think there are any people down here.”_ The hollowed-out stone below her looks too much like the site of a tragedy, and it’s just not fair. The others are still talking while they wait for the green lion to catch up, but she doesn’t hear much, looking down at the scene in front of her. It’s comfortingly familiar and ghastly and horrible all at once. The frame of the city wall is still mostly intact: pillars and arches of stone that Allura knows would have been filled in with quintessence-powered reinforced plates stretched over the spaces. The grand archway that would have led into the market district at the front of the city is almost exactly as it would have appeared while the city was alive, and she takes in a breath sharply at the thought that this was a bustling community some time in the not-too-distant past. 

At a time when Altea was already lost, when its people were already lost, there were others here. These buildings didn’t just appear out of nowhere, and the idea that there were others, and that she’s somewhere they must have been, must have traded and played and worked and _lived_ \-- it’s maddening. She came so close; she let herself hope that others might still be here, that there might be survivors of the devastation that had wrecked her homeworld beyond her and Coran, and now -- this. Tears prick the back of her eyes, and she can feel herself beginning to slip into a familiar spiral of despair. To be this close, and for there to be no one, for this to just be another place where more people -- more of _her_ people -- met a violent end... She takes a deep breath, blinking slowly as she realizes there’s a bit of calm to be found at the center of this spiral before it plunges her any deeper. 

Because the thing is there aren’t any signs of a violent end, now that she pauses and actually looks for them. There’s no damage to the buildings beyond what the actual sinking of the city seems to have done. There are no scorch marks or evidence of weaponry, no corpses littering the ocean floor -- and while certainly fish or other deep sea creatures might have eaten the flesh away, she would expect that if something had happened there would be evidence: bones or signs of an explosion or an attack or -- well, something. The realization dawns slowly that maybe no one met a terrible end here, maybe they’re still out there somewhere. 

“Maybe they escaped,” she says quietly, and it’s only when she hears her own voice that she realizes she said it aloud at all, and also that the others have been talking. She blinks, listening now as Coran’s voice comes through the comms. 

“...we’ll have to trace it back from this point and see where its origins were. I don’t know why it’s masked like this -- it’s not a practice I’ve ever seen from Alteans.” 

“I mean, it makes sense if you’re trying to conceal your true location.” That’s Hunk, also through the comms. “It looks like they’ve just rerouted the signal through some array that’s still active within this...whatever it is? Sunken city, you said?” 

“That’s an apt description,” says Pidge. “Would it help if we found the physical array?” 

“Maybe?” Hunk says, though he doesn’t sound too sure. 

“I bet Hunk can figure it out from up there,” Lance cuts in, sounding offended and throwing his hands wide even though he must know the others can’t see him. “I don’t think I’ve met a computer-y-type thing he can’t win against --” 

“I could probably hook into it directly that way,” Pidge interrupts testily, and though they’re not in the same lion, Allura can practically see her frowning and adjusting her glasses -- or assumes she would be, if she were wearing them. “And if I’m working from the array itself, I might be able to track the signal back to its source using their own technology, which we know will be compatible, and probably more efficient.” 

“I’m telling you, Hunk can --” 

“No, that’s fair,” says Hunk, and Lance flushes red but doesn’t say anything more. Allura’s ears are filled with the clicking sounds of console keys even through the comms. “Go ahead and lock onto the signal with your lion, number five,” shouts Coran over what sounds like both he and Hunk rapidly typing. “We’ll try to trace it back from here, but if you can get to wherever it’s broadcasting from -- well, you’re right that that’s probably more effective.” 

“Roger that,” says Pidge. “What about the sonic scan?” 

“No time for that now,” says Shiro, though he sounds a bit frustrated, and Lance slumps down in his pilot’s chair, mouth tight. “We’ll just follow the signal and hope there aren’t too many surprises -- Lance and Allura, you hang back. There’s no need for us to fly both lions in there immediately, and I’ll feel better if we’ve got backup at the ready, since we’re going in blind.” 

“All right, over and out,” says Hunk, and the comms from the castle click closed as the green lion zips forward, disappearing into the ruins below. 

“Well what are we supposed to do now?” Lance grumbles. 


	19. Chapter 19

Yeskia has to hand it to Edessa; the woman knows how to use her influence when she needs to. There’s not even enough time for Elian to work himself back into too much of a huff before she’s showed up at the council room doors with a soothing presence, Ren, and Jenis -- the engineer-slash-farmer. Jenis is known to Yeskia mainly for being the person to call when there are problems with the grid -- though they’re not always easily found. She knows the youngsters rely on them for glodworm glisten during the third-season rush, though, and that they’ve always been kind to Ren, so she has a decent soft spot for them anyway. Plus, she can understand not wanting to be found when it’s often Elian doing the finding. 

“So, what happened when Ren and Edessa activated the signal, then?” Lisanne is asking now, and Yeskia is once again grateful to them for producing the necessary questions. 

Jenis rocks back on their heels, looking over at where Edessa is sitting in a chair in the corner, passing tarts to Ren every few minutes. They take a breath and look back to Lisanne, Elian, and Yeskia, arrayed around the councilors’ table. 

“Well, you see, councilors, we never rerouted the citizens’ array to its own signal tower, so it’s still connected to the old city.” 

“The city that was lost hundreds of sun cycles ago? The city that sank below the ocean as it was being evacuated by the early expeditions? That city?” That’s Elian, glaring at Jenis over his glasses, and Yeskia can’t help but feel a pang of sympathy as she recognizes it as the same glare he’s directed at her hundreds of times -- it’s highly disconcerting to be on the receiving end, she knows from experience.

“Um, yes,” Jenis says quietly, now shuffling their feet in an odd little dance of nerves. “That’d be the one.” 

“Then...is it even broadcasting off-planet?” Lisanne asks, frowning.

“Yes! Yes, it is,” they answer, looking toward Lisanne but not quite at them. “But to anyone who receives the signal, it will look like it originated in the city -- unless they’re particularly equipped to look deeper.” 

\--

Hunk and Coran are both typing rapidly on console keyboards, and there’s a growing restlessness Keith can feel through his entire body that’s threatening to explode at any moment. What is taking them so long? At least when Hunk wanted everyone to come mess around in the kitchen, that could happen while they were still on the way to the Blades headquarters -- if anything, it was a welcome distraction. But now they’re stuck here in this nowhere part of space, not only still hours away from the Blades base, but completely ground to a halt by some joker with a distress beacon. 

Trying to trace this stupid signal isn’t getting them any closer to their destination; it isn’t getting him any closer to _answers_. If all they found is ruins, why isn’t everyone back at the castle and set to take off again? Why are they orbiting around this nothing planet with some broken rocks under the ocean? Who cares where the signal originated? If it isn’t clear by now where it came from -- if it’s been deliberately hidden somehow -- then whoever sent it clearly doesn’t want to be found, and they’re wasting time! They’re wasting time they could be spending getting him closer to knowing the truth about himself, and maybe even something about his mom -- 

“Keith, buddy, you okay over there? You look like you’re about to break your station just to see if you can.” Hunk’s voice cuts into his thoughts, and Keith sees he’s looked up from the console, his hands hovering over the keyboard and an expression of open concern on his face. Keith also realizes he’s been clutching his fists so tightly the nails have dug into his hands and from the wetness on his right palm, in at least one instance they’ve drawn blood.

“Uh, yeah…’m fine,” he mutters, wincing, and silently uncurls his fingers to wipe the blood surreptitiously on his pants. “How’s the tracing going?” he adds, loudly enough for Coran to hear him too. 

“It’ll be better once we hear from Number Five,” says Coran in a harried tone that’s matched by the speed of his fingers on the keyboard. 

“She should have a better time of it than we are -- it’s like trying to trace back a needle that’s been cut off of its thread, which was already invisible, and -- I don’t know; I’m running out of metaphor! Simile! Whichever!” 

“It’s that bad,” Hunk adds, frowning determinedly. He clicks the comms connection back on to ask, “Pidge, what’s your status?”

“Approaching the beacon origin,” comes Pidge’s voice, sounding nothing if not determined. It looks like it’s in this crumbly old -- something -- building -- I’m gonna hop out of my lion and swim down.” 

“Aw, man -- Pidge is gonna swim? Wish I was there to see it.” Lance snorts, and Keith can’t help but roll his eyes hearing it. 

“Yeah, because it would’ve been better if we’d sent you down to try and figure out a piece of alien tech,” he mutters. 

“What was that?” Shiro asks, and Keith clamps his mouth shut. Oops. 

“Nothing -- just waiting to hear more from Pidge.” He puts an emphasis on her name that he hopes makes it clear that Lance can shut up any time. 

“Aren’t we all? Seems like it’s gonna be a minute, though -- not sure she’s exactly built for quick swimming.” He’s joking, it’s clear, but Keith really wishes he wouldn’t. Not when he’s already tense. 

“Lance, buddy, that is not the most helpful you could be right now,” Hunk says, a bit of tightness creeping into his voice, though it’s clear he’s trying to keep it gentle.

“Also, I have a suit, genius,” Pidge says flatly. I Lance’s comments have gotten to her at all, her voice doesn’t show it. “As you may recall, it has a propulsion system.” 

“A propulsion system I could outswim in my sl--” Hunk flips a switch, cutting Lance off mid-sentence, but it seems he’s only muted transmissions from the blue lion, since a moment later they hear Pidge. 

“I’m in, and the terminal seems navigable,” she says, and Keith is torn between relief she’s found something and frustration that this means even more of a delay. He taps his fingers together restlessly to try to relieve some of the tension he can feel building back up in his body. 

“Good -- can you trace the signal? Get us some actual coordinates instead of this zipping and zapping across the whole freaking continent?” Hunk still sounds harried, and Keith wonders vaguely for a moment if all his stress is just from this. 

“Looks like...yes!” Pidge is victorious, and even though Keith can’t see her grin he can hear it as she says, “Putting them through to you all now. Lance? Allura? We’ll meet you there.” 

\--

“What if they are particularly equipped to look deeper?” Yeskia asks, keeping her tone non-accusatory. Jenis may be responsible for most of the outpost’s technology infrastructure, and therefore to blame -- but that’s also a reason to be understanding of them, she thinks. Imagine having to throw together a new interface with essentially some scrap metal and a shoestring. She certainly couldn’t have done a better job. 

“If they are, then they will, and they’ll figure out it’s come from us,” Jenis says, glancing at her face and then away again. “And I suppose we’ll find out soon enough if they have.” 

Elian appears to still be parsing out what Jenis is saying, eyebrows lowered over his tiny spectacles. Lisanne is frowning, but in more of a pensive way than Elian. Yeskia’s not sure what to make of this. 

“So, we meant to send a signal -- or Zoric did, anyway -- for emergency aid. We sent a signal for emergency aid. And now someone might respond to it. Is that right?” She says it slowly, clearly, looking from Lisanne’s face to Elian’s, hoping to get her fellow council members around to at least a place of calm, if not acceptance. 

“That seems about correct,” says Jenis, relief showing through their whole body as their shoulders lower and their round face relaxes. Yeskia is only too happy to take the pressure off of them -- not relaying the signal through a proper local tower was an oversight, but the outcome here may well be the same. 

“Then I don’t see this as a problem. This is what Zoric intended to do. Councilors, I move we dismiss Engineer Jenis and begin to discuss our far more pressing issue -- the fatality that moved Zoric to discharge the alarm in the first place. Losing a citizen means this disease is a real threat now.” She clasps her trembling hands in front of her and adds, “A threat to all of us.”


	20. Chapter 20

“Right, so we’re good here, yeah?” Hunk says as lightly as he can, looking from Coran to Keith and back again. “We’ve got the coordinates, green and blue are heading that way with paladins at the ready, nothing major to worry about while they get over there, right? Nothing to do until we know what happened and why someone sent a distress beacon?” 

“I suppose technically yes we have a bit of a reprieve,” Coran says slowly, brows furrowing. “Do you have some sort of pressing engagement?” 

“Uh, kind of.” He grasps the back of his neck -- it’s an anxious move, and he knows he probably shouldn’t, but he can’t stop himself. “You see, in the kitchens --” 

“Ah, in the midst of developing a fine new recipe, are you?” Coran says warmly, his face relaxing. “Reminds me of my younger days baking with the King and Queen -- Melenor had us make the perfect juniberry tarts -- why, people were clamoring for the recipe, and of course she gave it to them, because it was better than dealing with the clamoring and producing them ourselves --” 

“Right, right,” Hunk interrupts, relieved that he doesn’t have to go further into the current disaster that is the pantry. “Just trying to figure some things out, you know how it goes.” He laughs, hoping it sounds more natural to Coran and Keith than it does to himself. Deceiving his friends -- even if he’s just lying by omission -- isn’t exactly his strong suit. 

“By all means, don’t let a bit of an unknown emergency situation stand in the way of your culinary creativity!” Coran says, clapping his hands enthusiastically. “Keith and I will hold down the fort here -- right, Keith?” He flashes a smile in Keith’s direction, though the kid looks pretty sullen. 

“Uh, I guess,” he says, blinking. 

“Excellent! Stay on your station, then, right-o. Good luck, Hunk!” Coran turns back to his console, and Hunk lets his breath out slowly as he moves to leave the bridge, the doors sliding smoothly open to let him through. Luck is something he could definitely use if he has any chance of figuring out how to address the pile of weirdness in the pantry. He’d like to ask Coran about it -- if Allura knew a bit, Coran would probably know more -- but he’s pretty sure a kitchen emergency doesn’t trump one on a mysterious planet, presumably involving mysterious aliens. Besides, if he can’t handle anything that comes out of a kitchen, who even is he anymore? A bunch of alien muck with a weird name -- lung rot, he thinks, cringing a bit internally -- isn’t going to stop him figuring things out. 

Hunk looks up to see he’s made it to the door to the pantry kitchen already, which isn’t that surprising considering he’d been booking it through the castle halls, half-wondering if Coran was going to page him to the bridge in a panic. What’s more surprising is he’s not the only one there. He realizes it suddenly, and does a bizarre kind of pirouette that he doesn’t think he could repeat if he tried, registering his heart hammering before he can find his breath. 

“Shit, Keith, were you not gonna say anything?” He manages to get the words out, putting a hand to his chest to try to calm himself. Keith hasn’t moved from his position next to Hunk, arms crossed over his chest. He shrugs. 

“I was thinking. So were you, it looked like,” he says. 

“Well, yeah,” says Hunk. “I thought you were staying with Coran, though.” 

“He was thinking, too,” Keith says. “But out loud. I couldn’t…” he trails off, loosening one arm so he can wave a hand vaguely. Hunk nods sympathetically, feeling a bit more charitable now that the shot of adrenaline he felt when he first noticed Keith’s silhouette has faded. 

“Yeah, Coran’s got a lot of cool trains of thought, you know? But I know not everyone’s comfortable with someone spilling their brain out through their mouth for, like, extended periods of time.” He grins, but Keith’s expression is still neutral. 

“You are, though,” he says. There’s no judgment in the phrase, but Hunk considers it for a moment anyway. 

“I mean, yeah, I’ve had a lot of practice,” he says. “Like, years of it.” He’s lived with Lance for how long now? Long enough, he thinks, to be immune to any negative effects of someone else’s stream-of-consciousness. 

“Guess so,” says Keith. He jerks his head toward the door to the pantry kitchen. “We doing something in here or what?” 

\-- 

Hunk is intensely relieved to find that the strange alien putty-like stuff he left in the pantry is the same strange alien putty-like stuff that’s there now. It doesn’t even seem to have spread much further, which strikes him as a good sign as well. Keith takes the sight of the lung rot in a stride; his eyebrows raise a fraction of an inch when they walk through the pantry doors, but if Hunk hadn’t been scanning his face deliberately, he wouldn’t have noticed. 

Considering how preoccupied Keith has seemed all morning, Hunk expects he may need to explain the situation a few times over, but as soon as he’s gone through the narrative of the conversation he had with Allura this morning, Keith just nods. 

“All right, so first things first we need to figure out how to get this off the counter and get it in manageable pieces. That part I should be able to do pretty easily.” He pauses, reaching down to his left boot and pulling out an ordinary utility knife. Hunk blinks. 

“Is that just, like, always in there?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Keith says, shrugging. He prods the lung rot with the blade of the knife, gouging out a small chunk about the size of his fingertip. “It’s pretty soft, really, all things considered -- doesn’t seem like we should have much trouble.” Keith moves to the end of the island, still holding the knife. Some of the lung rot here has spread out to form a kind of peninsula, and he carefully slides the blade between the growth and the counter, leveraging up a section to peer at the steel underneath. He looks down at it for several seconds, frowning -- long enough that Hunk moves to stand by him and see. The steel under the section Keith is still holding up with the blade is a bright copper color in a perfect outline of the lung rot. It looks like it’s coated in some kind of liquid -- a liquid that’s thick as molasses, but doesn’t seem to flow anywhere. When Keith lowers the growth back onto the counter, it fits perfectly over the copper section, hiding it entirely. 

“This might be a bit tougher,” Keith says finally. That’s an understatement, Hunk thinks. What could that even be? “But I should be able to handle it.”

“You some kind of expert in mysterious goopy alien substances?” Hunk asks, half-joking. Keith’s face doesn’t change. 

“I had to clean up a lot of weird shit as a kid,” he says flatly. Hunk decides not to follow up. 

A few minutes later -- it must be only a few minutes, since they still haven’t heard anything from Coran -- they’ve each gathered a sizable amount of supplies. Hunk has pulled out sheets of the same flexible covering they used on the bowls, two giant steel tubs from deep in the pantry storage, and two pairs of oven mitts -- the ones that looked the most normal when he found them in stacks in the cupboards. He glances over to see Keith in front of a small pile of tools on a clear part of the side counter, examining a dough scraper, that same frown on his face that’s been there since they came into the pantry. It’s a different one from the one he was wearing earlier -- maybe Allura’s not the only one who started the day in need of a distraction. 

“Hey, Keith?” 

“Hm?” He doesn’t look up from the dough scraper, testing the edge with a finger now. 

“Would you rather I stick around here or head back to the bridge?” It’s an honest question, but Keith seems surprised by it, putting the dough scraper down and turning to look at Hunk for real. 

“I…” He pauses, blinks. Hunk tries to keep his expression as neutrally inviting as possible. “I’d rather you go back to the bridge,” Keith says finally. “If that’s okay, that is. I don’t really feel like being around...people.” 

“I can respect that,” Hunk says, nodding. “I’ll just, uh -- let me know if you need anything?” 

“Sure,” says Keith, but his attention is back on the tools in front of him, this time focusing on a wheel a bit like a pizza cutter, but serrated with half-inch long spikes all the way around. As Hunk steps back out of the pantry to make his way to the bridge, he thinks he hears Keith mutter something about vinegar. 


End file.
